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G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. Nkw York and London 



Iberoes of tbe IBations 

EDITED BY 

lEvel'sn Hbbott, /ID.B. 

FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 



FACTA DUCI8 VIVENT, OPER06AQUE 
GLORIA RERUM. — OVID, IN LIVIAM 265. 
THE HERO'S DEEDS AND HARD-WON 
FAME SHALL LIVE. 



SAINT LOUIS 




SAINT LOUIS. 

FROM A PAINTING BY GIOTTO AT FLORENCE. 



SAINT LOUIS 

(LOUIS IX. OF FRANCE) 

THE MOST CHRISTIAN KING 



FREDERICK PERRY, M.A. 

FELLOW OF ALL SOULS' COLLEGE, OXFORD 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

8;^e ^nicktibocktr '$xes6 
1901 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAR. 8 1901 

COPYniQHT ENTRY 

CLASS Q, ¥Sm No, 
COPY A. 



Copyright, 1900 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



"^ 



^ 






Ube *n<cfteibocftcr press, tRew jpotft 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE BEFORE THE ACCESSION 



OF LOUIS IX I 

CHAPTER II 

THE MINORITY ; AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE 

MAGNATES, I226-1231 21 

CHAPTER III 
THE PERIOD OF PEACE, I23I-I236 . . . -55 

CHAPTER IV 
THE PERIOD OF PEACE {Continued^, 1 236-1 241 . 81 

CHAPTER V 

THE ENGLISH WAR, I24I-I243 .... I05 

CHAPTER VI 
PRELIMINARIES OF THE CRUSADE, 1243-I248 . I27 

CHAPTER VII 
THE CRUSADE IN EGYPT, 1248-1250 . . . 159 

CHAPTER VIII 
THE SOJOURN IN PALESTINE, 1250-I254 , , IC>6 

iii 



IV 



Contents 



CHAPTER IX 
FOREIGN POLICY, I254-1270 

CHAPTER X 
INTERNAL AFFAIRS, 1254-1270 

CHAPTER XI 
PERSONAL LIFE, I254-I270 .... 

CHAPTER XII 
SECOND CRUSADE AND DEATH OF LOUIS, 1270 



PAGE 
229 



246 



266 



284 




ILLUSTRATIONS. 



* SAINT LOUIS .... Frontispiece 

[From a painting by Giotto at Florence.] 

MAP OF FRANCE ....... 

[From Lonynon's Atlas Historique de la France.^ 

' SEAL OF ROBERT, COUNT OF DREUX . 

^ GREGORY IX. 

[From a painting in the Basilica of St. Paul's, 
Rome.] 
' CASTLE OF COUCY, IN THE TIME OF SAINT LOUIS 
[From a drawing by M. Viollet-le-Duc] 

^ FIGURE ON TOMB OF PETER MAUCLERC, COUNT 
OF BRITTANY 

* SEAL OF THE MONASTERY OF SAINT LOUIS OF 

POISSY 

^ SIGNET RING OF SAINT LOUIS .... 

* GOLD FLORIN OF SAINT LOUIS .... 



24 

44 

50 

. . 56 
• . 56 

■ • 56 

' From Wallon's Sahit Louis, Alfred Mame et Fils. 

^ From La Croix's Science and Literature of the Middle Ages, 
Virtue & Co. 

^From Le Moyne de la Borderie's LListoire de Bretagne. 

^ From La Croix's Military and Religious Life, Virtue & Co. 

* From De Witt's Saint Louis et les Croisades, Hachette & Co. 

"From La Croix's Manners and Customs of the Middle Ages, 
Virtue & Co, 



vi Illustrations. 



' THE LAST JUDGMENT 58 

[Miniature from the Psalter of Saint Louis.] 

* SEAL OF SAINT LOUIS .....' 82 

* CHRIST THE JUDGE OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD 90 

[Miniature from the Psalter of Saint Louis.] 

' RELIQUARY OF THE TRUE CROSS . . . I02 

[Known as the Reliquary of Baldwin.] 

'seal OF FERRAND, COUNT OF FLANDERS . . 124 

*SEAL OF SAINT LOUIS 1 24 

'innocent IV 130 

[From a painting in the Basilica of St. Paul's, 
Rome.] 

'saint LOUIS PRAYING BEFORE A SHRINE . . 134 

[From a bas-relief of the thirteenth century in the 
cathedral of Notre Dame.] 

' THE PALACE AND THE SAINTE CHAPELLE IN 

PARIS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . . 150 

* GOLD CLASP OF SAINT LOUIS .... 156 
'departure of SAINT LOUIS FOR THE CRUSADE. 162 

' CAPTURE OF DAMIETTA 168 

PLAN OF MANSOURAH 1 78 

* ENVOYS OF THE SULTAN DISCUSSING TERMS OF 

RANSOM WITH CHRISTIAN CAPTIVES . . 188 

[From the Credo of Joinville.] 

' From Wallon's Saint Louis, Alfred Mame et Fils. 

' From La Croix's Science and Literature of the Middle Ages, 
Virtue & Co. 

^ From La Croix's Military and Religious Life, Virtue & Co. 

^ From De Witt's Saint Louis et les Croisades, Hachette & Co. 

* From La Croix's Manners and Customs of the Middle Ages, 
Virtue & Co, 



Illustrations. vii 



COFFER OF SAINT LOUIS 200 

' SARACEN WOMEN AND CHILDREN SAVED BY ORDER 

OF SAINT LOUIS 2IO 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

* THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN .... 226 

[From a thirteenth-century manuscript.] 

' CHAMBER OF SAINT LOUIS 234 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' SAINT LOUIS AND HIS CONFESSOR . . . 240 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' SAINT LOUIS RECEIVING THE SACRAMENT , . 248 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' RELATIVES OF THE MURDERED BOYS DEMANDING 

JUSTICE FROM THE KING .... 254 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' SAINT LOUIS MINISTERING TO THE POOR . . 268 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' SAINT LOUIS FEEDING A LEPER .... 272 

' SAINT LOUIS SUBMITTING TO SCOURGING . . 272 

'saint LOUIS READING THE SCRIPTURES . . 280 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' SAINT LOUIS AT PRAYER 286 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' DEATH OF SAINT LOUIS 292 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 

' SICK AND INFIRM BEFORE AN IMAGE OF SAINT 

LOUIS, BESEECHING HIS INTERCESSION . . 294 

[From a fourteenth-century manuscript.] 
' From Wallon's Saint Louis, Alfred Mame et Fils. 

* From De Witt's Saint Louis et les Croisades, Hachette & Co. 

* From Joinville's Histoire de Saint Louis, Firmin, Didot et Cie. 



VIU 



Illustrations. 



SHIELDS. 



THE KING OF FRANCE . 

THE KING OF CASTILE . 

PETER, COUNT OF BRITTANY 

THE COUNT OF TOULOUSE 

THE COUNT OF CHAMPAGNE . 

THE COUNT OF PROVENCE 

HENRY, COUNT OF BAR 

AMAURY DE MONTFORT 

THE KING OF ENGLAND 

HUGH, COUNT OF LA MARCHE 

THE EMPEROR 

HENRY, LANDGRAVE OF THURINGIA 

ROBERT, COUNT OF ARTOIS . 

WILLIAM LONGSWORD 

THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM 

THE TEMPLE .... 

MANFRED, KING OF SICILY 

HUGH, DUKE OF BURGUNDY . 

THE COUNT OF FLANDERS 

ENGUERRAND OF COUCY 

THEOBALD, KING OF NAVARRE 

JOHN OF JOINVILLE 

CHARLES, KING OF SICILY 

MATTHEW OF MONTMORENCY 



ST. LOUIS 





THE KING OF FRANCE 



THE KING OF CASTILE 



SAINT LOUIS 



CHAPTER I 

THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE BEFORE THE ACCES- 
SION OF LOUIS IX. 

AFTER the decay of the hne sprung from 
Charlemagne, the country of France was 
divided into several states ruled by Dukes 
or Counts. The House of Capet claimed the title 
and prerogative of King; their ancestor Hugh hav- 
ing been elected, by his peers and by the assembly 
of the kingdom, to the throne vacant through the 
death of Louis the Idler, in the year 987 after 
Christ. But for about two hundred years the princes 
clescended from him had little power outside their 
own patrimonial territories, which lay in the centre 
of Northern France between the basins of the rivers 
Seine and Loire, and were fertile and flourishing 
though not large, containing two populous towns, 
Paris and Orleans. They were bordered on all sides 
by great principalities whose rulers professed to 
recognise the suzerainty of the Capetians; paid 



r 



Saint Louis 



them homage on accession, and sometimes sent con- 
tingents to their armies; but, behaving in most 
things as equal sovereigns, did not hesitate to levy 
war against them, and never admitted royal inter- 
ference or control within their own states. 

Nevertheless, in spite of the weakness of the mon- 
archs, the kingly title and idea remained, as it did 
in the neighbouring country of Germany. There, 
during this period, the supreme authority was 
stronger; but the French Kings had two advantages 
over the German rulers. First, they preserved the 
succession of a single family. Second, the latter 
burdened themselves with the Imperial crown ; and 
instead of confirming and increasing their strength 
at home, were diverted to Italian conquests, and to 
disputing with the Popes the claim of supremacy in 
Christendom. The former on the other hand, as 
they did not waste their strength, or stir up enemies 
by such an undertaking, were able to extend them- 
selves by degrees, and to take the opportunities that 
offered of asserting their sovereignty. Moreover 
in doing this they generally had the support instead 
of the enmity of the Church, for the Popes were in- 
clined to favour their growth, as a balance to the 
Emperor; and the clergy of France, less powerful 
than in Germany, regarded them as protectors 
against the oppression of the lay feudatories, their 
neighbours. 

The first task of the French Kings was to establish 
their power firmly in their paternal domains; the 
next, to weaken, subdue, and bring into control the 
independent princes whom they called their vassals. 



The Kingdom of France 



and so regain over France the sole monarchy of 
Charlemagne. They were masters of their own im- 
mediate subjects by the middle of the twelfth cent- 
ury, chiefly owing to the vigorous and warlike rule 
of Louis VI. In the course of the next hundred 
and fifty years they vindicated their authority over 
the whole kingdom. Part of the vassal territories 
they took for their own, dispossessing the original 
rulers. Part remained under their native princes, 
who were no longer able, as formerly, to defy the 
King's pretensions and treat with him from an equal 
or better footing. He became their superior in 
strength as well as in title ; his royal prerogative, 
which long had lain asleep and almost forgotten, 
was revived and enforced ; and when they opposed 
him it was rather in the character of overgrown sub- 
jects than of independent sovereigns. 

The period of expansion spreads through three 
successive reigns; not that it absolutely began, as it 
did not end with them. But the previous kings 
were too feebly seated in the dominions they had, 
to be very active in increasing them ; and those that 
followed were already great and mighty monarchs, 
and the acquisitions they made were easy compared 
to the first ; for they gathered up, by their own 
weight and force, the scattered fragments that lay 
round, as great bodies attract small. Earlier, how- 
ever, the mass was still broken and dismembered, 
with no portion much preponderant over the other; 
and it was, as has been said, the policy and fortune 
of three reigns which drew the parts into a whole, 
and made France united and a nation. 



Saint Louis 



Before proceeding with this subject it will be con- 
venient to mention the chief of the vassal provinces 
which the realm contained. In the north was the 
county of Flanders, where the towns were already 
populous and rich with manufactures and commerce ; 
and for that reason turbulent towards their rulers. 
The old dynasty of Counts, which had been closely 
allied with the French Kings, failed early in the 
twelfth century ; and their successors inclined to lean 
upon the patronage and support of England. In 
the west the duchy of Brittany, of which the in- 
habitants, by the peculiar manners and institutions 
belonging to their Celtic race, and the savageness 
of their nature, which corresponded to the region, 
were, more than any other province, isolated and 
alien from their neighbours. To the north-east of 
Brittany lay the duchy of Normandy, occupied by 
an industrious people and a fierce and intelligent 
nobility. Below it the Counts of Anjou, who were 
constantly embroiled with the Norman princes, dis- 
puting against them possession of the province of 
Maine which separated their borders. South of the 
Loire the Dukes of Aquitaine ruled as far as the 
Pyrenees, and were raised to the station of great 
sovereigns by the extent of their dominions, the 
numbers and valour of their subjects, and the mari- 
time commerce which flourished along their coasts. 
But the free and martial spirit of their vassals, es- 
pecially in Gascony, while it secured them against 
subjugation from outside, was a frequent source of 
domestic disturbance. 

South-east of Aquitaine was the rich country of 



The Kingdom of France 



Languedoc, where the Counts of Toulouse were 
supreme. In this province the Romans in their 
conquest and occupation of Gaul had taken deeper 
root. The traditions if not the institutions of their 
government had survived ; and, at the period spoken 
of, the luxurious and comfortable life of the inhabit- 
ants, their manners, more civilised than in the north, 
and the greater freedom, activity, and self-esteem 
of the trading and industrial class of people, might 
recall the ages before the barbaric invasion, when 
Western Europe still rested in the shadow of a 
peaceful and well-ordered empire. On the farther 
bank of the Rhone, the country of Provence, re- 
sembling Languedoc in its conditions, customs, 
and the character of its inhabitants, Dauphiny, 
and the county of Burgundy, which to-day are 
an integral part of France, though occupied then 
by men of kindred race and language, were still 
in the thirteenth century dependencies of the 
Emperor. 

The bounds of France, as it then was, included the 
duchy of Burgundy. The rulers of this territory 
were not formidable or important, being distracted 
by quarrels with their own subjects, especially the 
prelates, whose power and possessions were greater 
there than in any other part of the realm. Next 
came the domain of the family styling itself Counts 
of Champagne. They had inherited or acquired the 
five counties of Chartres, Blois, Sancerre, Cham- 
pagne, and Brie, which lay like a chain round the 
east, south, and west of the royal patrimony. 
Touching Burgundy on the south and Vermandois 



Saint Louis 



on the north, they completed the circle of principal- 
ities by which the King was surrounded. 

In the latter half of the eleventh century the Duke 
of Normandy, whose ancestors had been since their 
settlement the strongest princes of the north, and 
had least regarded the authority of the Capetians, 
invaded and conquered England. This event 
changed the balance of power in France. The 
acquisition of a kingdom separated by the sea raised 
the Norman Dukes to a titular level with their suze- 
rain, of whom they became wholly independent in 
respect of their new possessions. From this time 
their dealings began to be on a fresh footing, and 
the French Kings profited by the change. For 
although their adversary vastly increased his ter- 
ritories and military resources, the centre of his 
interests was removed from France, his aims and 
position were dissevered from those of the other 
great vassals; and Normandy, having become an 
outlying and in some sort dependent province of 
England, was by degrees less able or anxious to 
resist absorption than when it stood alone and main- 
tained itself a separate and almost sovereign state. 
Ninety years after the conquest of England the 
Norman House was merged by marriage in that of 
Anjou ; and acquired by a further marriage the in- 
heritance of Aquitaine. The English King was 
then the greatest potentate in France both north 
and south of the Loire. But the very extent and 
diversity of his dominions made him too weak to 
overwhelm and swallow up his brother at Paris. 
The difference of customs and manners, language 



The Kingdom of France 



and interests which prevailed between England and 
Normandy and Anjou and Aquitaine; the distance 
which divided them ; and their mutual jealousy, 
inflamed by desire of independence, fed a constant 
stream of troubles for their common master, who 
held them as several realms, not as one, on different 
conditions and by various titles. 

Henry II, of England, who first united these 
territories, was a man of conspicuous energy and 
prudence both in peace and war. He was able to 
keep together the provinces of his Crown ; and even 
to add the county of Berry and the district of Vexin, 
and to establish his suzerainty over Brittany. But 
he never got the upper hand, decisively or for long, 
over the French King, who watched him like a 
jealous enemy, and did not fail to use the many 
opportunities of annoyance and attack which were 
opened by Henry's dissensions with the Church, 
with his subjects, and with his own family. He 
was generally leagued with one or other of the Eng- 
lish princes, who led the continental provinces in 
rebellion against their father, and accustomed them 
thus to look to France, not England, as their natural 
suzerain and ally. In this way Louis VII. harassed 
and kept at bay, though he could not seriously 
cripple, the power of the House of Plantagenet. 
His successor, Philip Augustus, achieved more. 
With his reign the tide of fortune turned to the 
flow, carrying the Capetian monarchy,which hitherto 
had only maintained itself in its original bounds, 
towards the destined limits of aggrandisement. 

By marriage with the niece of the childless Count 



Saint Louis 



of Flanders, and by a successful war against her 
uncle, Philip obtained the possession or reversion of 
Artois and Vermandois. The English King, at 
peace with France for the moment, kept himself 
benevolently neutral in this dispute, and helped to 
arrange the terms of settlement. But the quarrel of 
the two Houses was kept alive by conflicting inter- 
ests and soon broke out again openly. It was sus- 
pended however for a time by the death of Henry 
and by the third crusade. 

Philip entered upon that undertaking less from 
inclination than in obedience to the common 
sentiment of Christendom, which demanded im- 
periously that an effort should be made to stem the 
sudden flood of Infidel victory, and to restore the 
kingdom of Jerusalem from its recent ruin. Nor 
did he wait for its conclusion to resume his attacks 
upon the great enemy of the French Crown, in 
which he was assisted by the dissensions which con- 
tinued to prevail in the family of his rivals. He 
opposed John Plantagenet to Richard; and after 
Richard's death, upheld against John the legitimate 
claim of his nephew Arthur ; but finding no prospect 
of immediate success, and exhausted by the war, he 
made peace in the year 1200, and cemented it by 
marrying his eldest son Louis with Blanche, John's 
niece, daughter of the King of Castile. 

His opportunity came two years later, when 
John, who perhaps more than any other prince in- 
dulged his private passions to the detriment of his 
Crown, enraged the Count of La Marche, his great- 
est vassal in Poitou, whose betrothed wife he took 



The Kingdom of France 



for himself; and earned the hatred of the Bretons 
and the reprobation of all men by the murder of 
Arthur. This time the fortune of arms was not 
doubtful. Normandy was overrun and submitted 
almost willingly ; for the attachment of both people 
and barons to their ancient dynasty was much 
diminished by long absence of the sovereign in a 
foreign kingdom, and by the stricter rule and heavy 
exactions which lately had begun to be introduced. 
Philip confirmed his conquest by leniency of treat- 
ment and by preserving the privileges of the van- 
quished. The English King, detested by many of 
his subjects and sunk in long torpors of sloth and 
sensuality, not only failed to recover his losses, but 
endured in the following years the defection of other 
provinces, Maine and Anjou and Touraine and 
Poitou, which passed into the power of his enemy. 
He was deprived of his fiefs by a solemn judgment 
of the peers of France, and reduced to make a truce, 
under which he abandoned everything north of the 
Loire, and a great part of Poitou besides. 

Philip was left with his dominions doubled in 
extent and seven years of peace in which to establish 
and strengthen his authority. By that time he was 
ready to take the offensive again. The occasion was 
offered by the policy of the Apostolic See, which 
divided Western Christendom into two factions. 
On the one side Pope Innocent III., pursuing his 
inevitable feud against the Emperor, set up as a 
rival to Otho of Brunswick the young Frederick of 
Sicily, heir of the Imperial House of Hohenstaufen. 
The French King supported this party. On the 



lo Saint Louis 



other side the Emperor Otho was backed by John 
of England, who was his uncle. The Pope had his 
own quarrel with John, springing from ecclesiastical 
affairs in England ; and, affecting to depose him 
from his kingdom, offered it to Philip, who welcomed 
the enterprise. It was not undertaken, for the Pope 
withdrew his sanction when John submitted at the 
threat ; but Philip turned his arms against the Counts 
of Flanders and Boulogne, who having reason before 
to complain of his encroachment had revealed them- 
selves in this juncture the allies of his enemies. Their 
friends did not desert them ; a coalition was formed 
which hoped to destroy the French King and to 
split his swollen monarchy into fragments. But the 
fortune of battle was otherwise. The confederated 
army was beaten at Bouvines. Otho fled 
wounded and broken from the field ; Fer- 
rand of Flanders and Reginald of Boulogne 
were taken prisoners. Meanwhile Prince Louis 
drove the King of England shamefully from Poitou ; 
Flanders became submissive; and the growing king- 
dom was strengthened and consolidated by the vic- 
torious war. 

A year later the intolerable disorders of England 

and the failure of their rebellion led the barons of 

that country to offer its crown to Louis in right of 

his wife. His expedition, at first successful, was 

afterwards defeated and forced to return, as John's 

death removed the cause of English discord, 

' / and the temper of the nation revolted 

against invasion and conquest by a foreign 

prince. Philip had not assisted and barely refrained 



The Kingdom of France 1 1 

from forbidding his son's attempt; whether that 
from policy he was unwiUing to be entangled in an 
undertaking beyond his strength, and dangerous, 
perhaps, if it failed, to the security of acquisitions 
already won, or that he feared the enmity of the 
Pope, who took John under his protection, forbade 
him to be attacked, and excommunicated Louis for 
persisting. But the Princess Blanche, who is said to 
have urged her husband to accept the offer, was 
allowed to raise men and money for his succour; in 
this work she showed herself active and able, and 
equipped a considerable convoy, which, however, 
was met and destroyed at sea by an English fleet. 

While the King was extending his power in 
Northern France, Languedoc was afflicted with the 
most terrible disorder and calamity, which turned, 
not by design, but by the course of events, to the 
profit of the monarchy. The evil began by the 
growth in those parts of the Albigensian heresy. 
It is difficult and perhaps not necessary to define 
the exact tenets of the superstition, which indeed 
took various forms. It appears to have been, in the 
main, a revival of the Manichean belief which held 
that the universe was governed by two Powers — 
one good, one evil. The principles and dogmas of 
this creed, mixed with heathen philosophy and 
Eastern mysticism, were repugnant to the settled 
faith of the Christian world ; and its practical results 
emphasised the difference and increased the hostility 
of the orthodox. Such error could have taken no 
root in other parts of Western Europe, where life 
was rude and simple, speculation confined, and 



12 Saint Louis 



religion led men to observance of worship, pious 
works, and absolute faith in the doctrines of the 
Church, rather than to subtle questioning and ex- 
travagant ideas. But the people of South-eastern 
France, as has been remarked, were on a different 
level of civilisation : more rich, luxurious, and lei- 
sured, and they ran mad after a teaching which was 
not only odious but incomprehensible to their 
northern neighbours. Their intelligence was cap- 
tivated by its ingenuity ; their feeling touched by its 
mysticism ; and the asceticism and purity enjoined 
on its votaries, though practised by few, attracted 
the more serious spirits among a population of easy 
and licentious livers, who had fallen away from 
primitive belief. 

The spread of heresy soon roused notice and 
alarm in other countries, and especially at Rome ; 
for the Church was both shocked in its convictions 
and attacked in its interests. The new sect was 
said to proclaim that Jehovah was Satan, and most 
of the Old Testament his work; that Moses and 
John the Baptist were devils. At the same time 
they pronounced the existing Church to be a creation 
of the Evil Power; and pointed at the vices of the 
clergy, who in Languedoc shared the prevailing 
looseness of manners. Bishops and abbots were 
driven from their sees and possessions, and the 
whole order fell into contempt and disrepute. The 
schism was strongest in the towns; but a great part 
of the nobility of the province became perverts, and 
took the occasion to seize ecclesiastical lands. The 
high magnates, the Count of Toulouse, the Viscount 



The Kingdom of France 13 

of Beziers, and the Count of Foix, adhered openly 
to the heretics, or favoured them secretly. 

The Pope thundered against the error, and sent 
missionaries to reclaim the strayed. They corrected 
in some degree the disorders of the clergy of the 
region; but preached for ten years without effect, 
though reinforced by the burning zeal of Saint 
Dominic. Their hearers were averse and scornful; 
while the enthusiasm which always lies hid in the 
heart of any people, however incredulous, was already 
possessed by the heretics. The only result of the 
mission was to embitter and enrage both sides, as 
the monks upbraided and threatened the sectaries, 
and were in turn scoffed at and ill-treated. At last 
Peter of Castelnau, one of the legates, who had de- 
nounced Count Raymond of Toulouse by name, 
was murdered at Saint Gilles by a knight of the 
Count's. The others fled; and Innocent, angry be- 
yond measure, ordered a crusade to extirpate heresy 
and to dispossess Raymond. The summons carried 
with it indulgences and all the benefits which the 
Church could offer to the servants of the Faith; 
and was well answered by the barons of France. 
The King refused to take part, alleging that two 
great enemies — the Emperor and the King of Eng- 
land- — lay in wait against him and required his 
whole strength. A vast army following the cross 
invaded Languedoc, The Count of Toulouse was 
terrified, submitted, and joined in destroying the 
Viscount of Beziers, his own nephew and ally. The 
papal Legate offered the territories of Beziers to 
the Duke of Burgundy, and then to other magnates 



14 Saint Louis 



who were in the crusade ; and when they declined, 
to Simon of Montfort the elder, who accepted the 
gift and the task of suppressing schism : the others 
returned home. 

Raymond of Toulouse found himself subjected to 
conditions of peace too hard to bear; and became 
in his turn the mark of the crusade, which Simon 
of Montfort carried on, aided by the levies of the 
Church and by private adventurers. The war was 
bloody and devastating and pursued to extirpation 
with a cruelty beyond the custom of the age. The 
invaders fought as against infidels instead of fellow- 
Christians, and showed no mercy in battle or after 
it. Montfort's military skill and fierce enthusiasm 
sustained him against the greater numbers of the 
enemy; who, besides the multitude of his subjects, 
obtained the help of Gascony and Aragon. For the 
struggle had changed from a religious to a political 
one with Montfort's endeavour to establish himself 
in Languedoc ; and neither the King of Aragon nor 
the King of England wished the Count of Toulouse 
to be crushed to the profit of France and the Pope. 
. ^ But the combined forces were defeated at 
Muret; and the Councils of Montpellier* 
and of the Lateran f declared Raymond de- 
prived of Toulouse and all his possessions west of 
the Rhone, which were assigned to Montfort and 
his heirs. 

The crusaders had conquered but could not hold 
Languedoc. After a short time the whole country 

* January, a.d. 1215. 

f The fourth of the Lateran, November, a.d. 1215. 



The Kingdoin of France 15 

rose against them. Montfort was hard pressed in 
the field, but nevertheless maintained a siege of the 
city of Toulouse for nine months, when his head 
was split by a stone from a catapult. His eldest 
son, Amaury, inherited his claims but not his war- 
like genius. He was beaten and repulsed every- 
where, his garrisons driven out, and the Counts of 
Toulouse regained their own. Amaury solicited 
help from the King, and his prayers were supported 
by the pressing mandate of Pope Honorius.* 

Philip had hitherto declined to meddle in the 
affairs of Languedoc or actively to assist the crusad- 
ers. He had complied, however, with the papal 
injunction and his own interests so far as to be 
benevolent to their enterprise. After Muret he 
had sent his son to the south with an army, which 
finding no present need of its services returned 
quickly; and he had accepted the homage of Simon 
of Montfort for the conquered territories. Now he 
was less occupied with other dangers, and not un- 
willing to sustain his vassal and prove his obedience 
and devotion to the Church. Louis was despatched 
again and had some successes; but, failing to take 
Toulouse in face of the obstinate defence of the 
citizens, he retired, having accomplished the forty 
days of service which earned the indulgences pro- 
mised to the crusade. Amaury got no more aid, and 
lost the whole province with the exception of a few 
strong places. It seems that the King, advanced 
in age and failing in health, shrank from a new and 
arduous task; or perhaps he considered the fruit not 

* Honorius III., who succeeded Innocent III. in a.d. 1216. 



1 6 Samt Louis 



yet ripe. At any rate he refused the cession, which 

Amaury offered in his straits, of all the territories 

which the two Councils had bestowed on the House 

of Montfort. 

Philip Augustus died in 1223, leaving an immense 

treasure and a Crown marvellously increased in 

strength and reputation over that which he 

,, had received. His son Louis, eighth of the 
14th , 1 1 ■ . ' ^ 

name, succeeded hnn without trouble or 

opposition, being the first prince of the Capetian 
House who had not been solemnly crowned and 
associated in the kingdom during his father's life- 
time. He was already in the prime of his years, 
an approved soldier and zealous churchman, of a 
bold and upright character, ambitious of power, but 
inferior to Philip in prudence and politic genius. 
He was willing to suppress the southern heresy which 
had sprung into new vigour with the expulsion of 
the invaders; and accepted Amaury 's cession, sub- 
ject to the Pope's confirmation. But Honorius at 
this moment had changed his views, and was 
more anxious to promote the crusade of Palestine 
which the Emperor Frederick was undertaking. 
He discouraged therefore any renewal of the at- 
tack on Toulouse; and the King, though reluctant, 
obeyed. 

The Pope's exhortations to peace with England 
were less favourably heard. Louis not only rejected 
the demand for the restoration of Normandy which 
Henry HL put forward, alleging a stipulation of 
the treaty which closed the late unfortunate in- 
vasion ; but, the existing truce having expired, he 



The Kingdom of France 1 7 

prepared to complete the conquest of Poitou. With 
a great army, which was joined by many magnates 
of France, he entered that province, captured the 
strong town of Rochelle, and continued as 
far as the river Garonne a march which re- 
sembled a triumphal progress rather than a 
campaign. The Count of La Marche came over to 
his side, and the whole country yielded almost 
without resistance, having small affection for the 
English suzerain, who, distracted by quarrels with 
his baronage, seemed to have abandoned Aqui- 
taine to its fate. An expedition which crossed in 
the following year recovered little of what had 
been lost. 

Meanwhile the Emperor had deferred his crusade ; 
and the Pope reverted to the affairs of Languedoc. 
He sent a Legate into France to procure a suspen- 
sion of hostilities against the English, and to arrange 
for the destruction of the heretics. A council of 
French prelates convoked at Bourges refused to be 
satisfied with the assurances of Raymond of Tou- 
louse, son of the Count whom Montfort had dis- 
possessed. The final decision was referred to the 
Pope; who through the mouth of the Legate, in an 
assembly of barons and bishops at Paris, excom- 
municated Raymond and his adherents, and called 
on the King to take possession of the fiefs renounced 
by Amaury of Montfort. The papal mandate, the 
urgent entreaties of the prelates, who declared that 
he alone could accomplish the business, and his own 
inclination, led Louis to consent. The crusade was 
preached zealously throughout France, and was 



Saint Lotiis 



undertaken by a vast multitude of all ranks. The 
clergy contributed a tenth of its revenues to the war. 
The King of England was threatened with excom- 
munication if he troubled France; the King of 
Aragon forbidden, under the same penalty, to assist 
the Count of Toulouse. 

The rendezvous of the crusaders was fixed at 
Bourges, a month after Easter, 1226. They 
amounted, it is said, to fifty thousand horse. The 
King, leaving Queen Blanche at Paris to govern in 
his absence, led them to Lyons and down the valley 
of the Rhone, finding no opposition till he came to 
Avignon. The heretics were strong in that rich 
and fortified city; and either through hostility or 
fear passage was denied to the royal army. Louis 
laid siege with all his forces. The defence was 
vigorous and prolonged, for the town was well fur- 
nished with men and machines of war. The be- 
siegers lost great numbers in assaults and through 
sorties, and were distressed by the summer heats and 
the plague which followed, and by failure of food 
and forage, as the Count of Toulouse had wasted 
the surrounding country. At the end of forty days 
Count Theobald of Champagne, declaring that he 
had fulfilled the period of service to which he was 
bound by feudal law, withdrew from the camp. His 
defection was suspected to be arranged with other 
of the magnates, who saw their forces being ex- 
hausted for the aggrandisement of royal power. 
Nevertheless the King persisted in the siege ; and 
after three months the town was brought to capit- 
ulate. It received easy terms : a fine, the delivery 



The Kingdom of France 



of hostages, the breach of its walls, and filling up of 
the moat. 

The army, much diminished by its losses and by 
the return of many of the crusaders, proceeded 
through Languedoc to within a few miles of Tou- 
louse. There was no resistance anywhere, Count 
Raymond having gathered his forces within the 
walls of his capital and left the country unoccupied 
except by a peaceful population or those who 
favoured the invader. Louis did not attempt the 
siege of Toulouse, which he purposed to undertake 
the next spring, but, leaving his lieutenants behind 
and garrisons in the strong places, turned to march 
homewards. At Montpensier in Auvergne he fell 
sick of dysentery and fever brought on by the un- 
healthy climate and the hardships of campaigning; 
after a few days' illness he died on the 8th of 
November, 1226. 

Before his death he called the bishops and barons 
who were in the army, and requested them to take 
an oath to be faithful and obedient to his heir, which 
they did with tears, afterwards confirming their pro- 
mise by a written deed. He also named the Queen 
as guardian and regent during the minority. 

His body was carried back home and buried in 
the Church of Saint Denis where the Kings of 
France have their sepulchre. Contemporary writers 
praise him as a brave and pious prince, generous of 
disposition and affable in his manners. He left an 
infant daughter Isabel, and six sons ; of whom Louis, 
the eldest, the subject of this work, was in his thir- 
teenth year, having been born on Saint Mark's day, 



20 Saint Lottis 



the 25th of April, 1214. The second was Robert, 
the third John, the fourth Alphonso, the fifth 
PhiHp, the sixth Charles. John and Philip died 
young ; the others will be mentioned frequently in 
the following pages. 





PETER, COUNT OF BRITANNY 



THE COUNT OF TOULOUSE 



CHAPTER II 

THE MINORITY; AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST 
THE MAGNATES 

1226-1231 

QUEEN BLANCHE, coming from Paris with 
her children to join her husband, was met 
by Bishop Guerin of Senlis with the news of 
his death. It is said that she displayed the utmost 
violence of grief, and would have taken her own life 
had not the frenzy been restrained by her attend- 
ants. The tale is not incredible, for it is agreed that 
the King and Queen, since their marriage in child- 
hood, had cherished a passionate affection for one 
another. But there was little time to indulge sor- 
row if the duties of a mother and a guardian were 
not to be forgotten. It appeared at once that the 
crown and fortunes of her son were in danger, from 
which only promptness and vigour and sagacity in 
counsel and action could save them. 

The magnates of France had found their power 
depressed, as the royal power M^as exalted, by the 
policy of Philip Augustus. They nourished their 
discontent, and were anxious to take the first 



21 



22 Saint Louis [1226- 

occasion for recovering the ground they had lost and 
for vindicating their old independence. Signs of 
imminent trouble had appeared in the late reign : 
the desertion of the Count of Champagne from the 
army before Avignon, and the secret league which 
was said to exist between him, the Count of Brit- 
tany, and the townspeople. The storm which Louis 
VIII. did not live to meet gathered quickly round 
the throne of his successor, as the magnates saw 
their opportunity in the prospect of a long minority, 
a weak and troubled government, and a Regent 
whom they hated as a foreigner and despised as a 
woman. 

Blanche, however, was a woman of masculine and 
kingly genius, as her enemies recognised afterwards 
when they called her thejiew Semiramis. She had 
the fierce and haughty temper of the blood of Plan- 
tagenet which she shared ; the intolerance of oppos- 
ition, the ruthless energy, the caution, prudence, 
and skill in affairs which marked so many princes of 
that famous race. She had also the support of a 
considerable party. The prelates, as a rule, were 
on her side. The Cardinal-Legate Romano was her 
firm friend ; scandal, in which there appears to have 
been no truth, asserted that he was her lover. He 
was of the Frangipani, a noble Roman House, and 
claimed kinship with the royal family of France. 
He had been sent into the kingdom, as has been 
related, to contrive peace with the English and war 
against the heretics ; and had shown himself deserv- 
ing the reputation which he bore of wisdom, dis- 
cretion, and ability. Another priest whose counsels 



1231] Strtiggle against the Magnates 23 

were valuable to the Queen was Guerin, Bishop of 
Senlis, Chancellor in the late reign and an old 
adviser of Philip Augustus, who had done good 
service at the battle of Bouvines. But the mis- 
fortune of his death, which happened in the spring 
of 1227, soon deprived her of his friendship and 
assistance. 

The magnates expected to find a leader in Philip, 
Count of Boulogne, son of Philip Augustus by a 
morganatic marriage. He had been married to the 
daughter of that Count of Boulogne who was taken 
prisoner at Bouvines and was still in captivity, and 
had received the possessions of his father-in-law and 
other lordships in Normandy. This young prince 
was of a proud and brutal temper which got him the 
nickname of Hurepel, that is, Roughskin : he was 
not, however, without generous emotions or loyalty; 
and though resenting the regency of another, re- 
mained at this juncture faithful to the oath which 
he had sworn at his brother's death-bed. The Queen 
encouraged his good disposition by a gift of castles 
and a pension. 

But the chief spirit of the discontented party was 
Peter, commonly styled the Count of Brittany. He 
was a cadet of the family of Dreux, a younger 
branch of Capet ; and acquired Brittany, which he 
now governed as Regent for his son, by a marriage 
with Alix, half-sister of the unfortunate Arthur. 
While he fought against the extension of royal 
authority he encroached unscrupulously upon the 
rights of his own vassals, and was called Mauclerc 
because he plagued the clergy. The writers of the 



24 Saint Louis ti226- 

age, who were mostly monks, have given him the 
worst of characters. They describe him as a hatchel 
of sedition, full of treasons and stratagems, cruel, 
faithless, and a pirate. At the same time he was 
admitted to have an intelligence above the level of 
his time and to be a brave soldier and skilful com- 
mander both on land and sea. His principal ally 
was Hugh of Lusignan, Count of La Marche, once 
the lover and now the husband of Isabel, widow of 
King John of England. He had submitted to Louis 
VHL when he overran Poitou, and had made an 
agreement with him against the English, but was 
not inclined to become an obedient vassal to France : 
his wife's ambition rather than his own incited him 
to take advantage of the disturbances about to arise. 
The last injunctions of Louis VHL had bound his 
adherents to see that his son was crowned as soon 
as possible, that he might receive the homage of his 
great subjects and be fortified by their oaths of 
allegiance. No time was lost in carrying out his 
wishes. The Queen wrote letters to the arch- 
bishops, bishops, and magnates of the realm, 
summoning them to assemble at Rheims for the 
coronation on the first Sunday in Advent. The 
communes also of the neighbouring region were 
summoned to attend; and letters to the same effect 
were sent out by the prelates and barons who had 
given their promise to the late King. The replies 
received were not encouraging. Many of the barons 
declined to come. Some veiled their disaffection 
under pretext of the grief they professed to feel at 
the King's death ; aiming no doubt at the Queen, 




SEAL OF ROBERT, COUNT OF DREUX. 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 25 

whom her enemies already accused of having con- 
spired with the Count of Champagne to poison him: 
that prince was well known to entertain a romantic 
attachment to her person, which gave a handle to 
the lie. A greater number demanded openly that 
the prisoners whom the King held should be re- 
leased, especially Ferrand of Flanders and Reginald 
Qf Boulogne; that the lands which the last two 
Kings had taken unjustly, as they said, should be 
restored; and that the feudal privileges of the 
barons, which had been impaired, should be re- 
afifirmed to the full. 

These refusals did not make the Queen and her 
counsellors less anxious to hasten the. coronation. 
She carried the King to Rheims, whither repaired a 
number of prelates and a few magnates; among 
them the Counts of Boulogne and of Dreux, the 
Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Bar, and Enguer- 
rand of Coucy; also the Countess of Flanders, who 
was in treaty for the release of her husband, and 
the Countess dowager of Champagne. The Legate 
was present; and John, King of Jerusalem, with 
his Patriarch. Theobald of Champagne was pre- 
pared to attend and approached within a few miles 
with his retinue, a part of which entered the town. 
But he was in much odium from his desertion at 
Avignon and the slander of poisoning which had 
been spread against him, and was moreover disliked 
by the barons, particularly by the Count of Bou- 
logne, on account of the favour which he showed to 
the commons in his domain, and the liberal and \ 
learned studies which he pursued, preferring them * 



26 Saint Louis 



L1226- 



to the usual occupations of feudal nobility. The 
Queen, therefore, to avoid offence, sent and forbade 
him to enter Rheims, and ordered the provost to 
expel those of his following who were already in the 
place ; and the barons added a message that he 
should not fortify his towns, or a general attack 
would be made on him. Receiving this discourage- 
ment he retired in great anger. 

The young King was crowned on the day fixed, 
the first Sunday in Advent, by the Bishop of Sois- 
sons, the See of Rheims being at the time vacant. 
In his right hand was placed a royal sceptre, the 
emblem of protection and government ; in his left 
a wand, signifying mercy, with a hand at the top to 
typify justice. His head was anointed with sacred 
oil from the vial kept in the abbey of Saint Remy. 
It was remarked that he had the blue eyes, the fair 
complexion, and yellow hair which belonged to the 
House of Charlemagne, from which he descended 
through his grandmother, Isabel of Hainault, When 
the coronation was over the prelates and barons 
swore fealty and did homage both to the King and 
to the Regent. The Countesses of Flanders and 
Champagne each claimed the right of bearing the 
sword of state in the ceremony; the one in right 
of her husband, the other of her son. To avoid a 
decision the office was deputed to the Count of 
Boulogne. 

The next day Blanche returned to Paris with the 
King. In a few weeks she released Ferrand of 
Flanders from the prison in which he had lain for 
twelve years, on terms which, though favourable to 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 27 

the kingdom, were lenient enough to bind the Count 
to a loyalty which he faithfully preserved. At the 
same time she set up a further claim on the gratitude 
of Philip of Boulogne by detaining his father-in-law 
in captivity, in which he died shortly afterwards. 
Meanwhile the enemies of the Crown were laying 
their plans. Even in the last reign Peter of Brit- 
tany had been negotiating with the English on his 
own behalf and that of the Count of La Marche, 
with the result that Henry III. had agreed to marry 
his daughter Yolande ; to assist his pretensions; to 
send his brother Richard, who governed Gascony, 
to help him ; and to cross the sea in person when a 
suitable opportunity occurred. Hugh of La Marche 
came into the alliance though Blanche made liberal 
offers; and the Count of Champagne, fresh from 
the repulse of Rheims, put himself into the hands 
of the confederates. Their treaties were made be- 
fore the end of the year; they avowed openly their 
intention of refusing obedience to the King and 
began to fortify and provision their castles. 

Blanche, acting promptly, gathered at once a con- 
siderable army which the Legate joined and the 
Counts of Boulogne and Dreux, and threatened to 
fall upon Champagne. Theobald, who had engaged 
himself in the rebellion from pique, had no stomach 
for the war and hastened to make overtures of peace 
which were accepted gladly, and to return to the 
Queen's presence. Strengthened by his accession, 
the royal army advanced towards Chinon, ready to 
turn against Brittany or La Marche or Richard of 
Cornwall, who having received from England a 



Saint Louis [1226- 



reinforcement of Welshmen and a large sum of 
money had invaded Poitou. A summons was sent to 
the two Counts to appear before the King in his court 
of Parliament, or to be declared open traitors and 
attacked in force. Being thus brought to a point 
sooner than they expected, they found themselves 
unprepared to fight, and promised to meet the King 
- -^ at Chinon. That place was reached on the 
2 1st of February, but the rebels neither ap- 
peared themselves on the day fixed nor sent 
their excuses. They received a second summons 
and again promised to come, and failed again. To 
preserve the strictest requirement of custom Blanche 
summoned them a third and last time in the King's 
name, and at the same time advanced to Loudun. 
Then, seeing that no further delay could be hoped 
for, they sent envoys to arrange terms. 

The Queen having made a truce with the English 
returned to Vendome, whither the Counts repaired 
on the 1 6th of March. Policy and necessity alike 
forbade harsh treatment; they were welcomed back 
to their allegiance, did homage to the King in the 
presence of the Legate, and received considerable 
advantages under a treaty which was cemented by 
three contracts of marriage: between John, the 
King's second brother, and Yolande of Brittany; 
between the Prince Alphonso and the daughter of 
the Count of La Marche; and between Hugh, the 
Count's eldest son, and Isabel, the King's sister. 
All the parties were children at the time, and not 
one of the marriages was consummated in the event. 
Meanwhile Peter obtained the enjoyment of Angers 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 29 

and other towns of Anjou, which province was 
already marked out as the appanage of Prince John ; 
and promised for his part to make no alHance with 
England and to give up his daughter to the Count 
of Boulogne and to his own brothers, Robert of 
Dreux and Henry, Archbishop of Rheims, to keep 
her in ward till the Prince should be of marriageable 
age. Hugh of La Marche got a pension of ten 
thousand pounds for ten years in satisfaction of his 
own and his wife's claims; while the King under- 
took to make no peace with England without his 
consent. 

The English King, hoping to recover a part at 
least of his former dominions, sent over the Arch- 
bishop of York and others early in the year, to aid 
the counsels of the rebels and to treat with the 
barons of Normandy, Anjou, and Poitou. But the 
envoys found the rebellion already composed, and 
that the Regent, as the English chronicler com- 
plains, " had made herself friends of the mammon 
of unrighteousness." When they applied to Peter 
of Brittany to proceed with the business of his 
daughter's marriage to their master, he informed 
them of the agreement just concluded with 

the King of France, which he refused to ' ' 
^ . 1227 

break. They then returned, having accom- 
plished nothing; and in July a truce of a year was 
made between France and England. 

The malcontents had been checked by the Queen's 
vigour but not reconciled. Indignant at the neces- 
sity of submission to a woman they fomented their 
own anger by spreading abroad calumnies against 



30 Saint Louis [1226- 

her, of which hatred made them credulous. The 
design of open rebellion had scarcely failed and the 
treaties of Vendome been concluded, when a plan 
was concocted of seizing the King's person as he 
travelled with his mother from Orleans to Paris. 
The Count of Champagne sent warning, and the 
Queen hurried her journey ; but reaching Montl'h^ry, 
learned that the road was already beset. In these 
straits she sent messages to the chief citizens of 
Paris and to all the surrounding country. The 
neighbouring knights gathered to the city to assist 
the rescue of the young King ; the levy of the Par- 
isians was armed ; and they marched together, with 
banners flying, straight towards Montl'h^ry. The 
force of the barons, posted in ambush, was afraid to 
attack so great a multitude ; and Louis passed to his 
capital along a road lined the whole way with 
shouting crowds, armed and unarmed, crying on 
God to give the King long life and save him from 
his enemies. The sight and sound of a devoted 
people made so deep an impression on his youthful 
mind, that to the end of his life he was fond of re- 
calling this scene to memory and of relating it to 
others. 

The confederates, baffled in one plot, concerted 
another before they dispersed. It was agreed that 
the Count of Brittany should prepare revolt; and 
that the rest, being called to attend the royal army 
against him, should furnish so slender a force that 
the King would certainly be defeated or captured. 
They began to doubt, as it seemed, of succeeding 
except by the help of surprise or treachery. The 




GREGORY IX. 

FROM A PAINTING IN THE BASILICA OF ST. PAUL'S, ROME. 



1231] Struggle against the Magjiates 31 

execution of their design, however, was deferred to 
a more convenient season ; and for a while the peace 
was not openly disturbed, except for the war in 
Languedoc, where, with varying success, the crusade 
was still carried on against the Count of Toulouse 
and his heretic subjects by the neighbouring bar- 
ons and clergy, without much assistance from other 
parts of France. But the path of government re- 
mained difficult and full of obstacles. 

A new Pope, Gregory IX., had succeeded Hono- 
rius III. in Peter's seat; and, though friendly to 
France, he was inclined to listen to a flood of com- 
plaints which poured in from the clergy of the king- 
dom, on the subject of the tithe on their revenues 
which Honorius had given to Louis VIII. for five 
years to support his southern crusade. The crusade 
had dwindled into the little irregular operations of 
a local war; but the tithe continued to be exacted; 
nor could the Regent spare so rich a source of sup- 
ply. The Legate stood by her firmly in compelling 
the reluctant clerics to pay; " You shall have the 
money," he said, " even if you have to take the 
capes of the canons. " The Chapters of the dioceses 
wrote to the Pope; and the Pope, taking their side, 
wrote to the Legate blaming his conduct and com- 
manding him to revoke the ordinance he had issued 
for the levy of the tax. But he anticipated the 
arrival of the papal letters by going to Rome him- 
self, where he justified his action, and obtained a 
decree that the tithe should be paid in full; which 
the deputies of the Chapters, who pleaded against 
him, could only get modified to the extent that the 



32 Saint Louis [1226- 

arrears still due should be estimated at no more 
than a hundred thousand pounds. 

Another difficulty arose with the Church in the 
case of the Archbishop of Rouen, who claimed the 
right of cutting wood in the royal forest of Louviers. 
The extent of the right was disputed ; and the 
King's bailiff seized some of the wood which was 
being taken to Rouen. The Archbishop, an ob- 
stinate man, quickly had the bailiff excommunicated. 
The Queen, whose spirit was not less inflexible than 
his, cited the prelate before the royal court on this 
and other counts. He appeared but refused to 
plead, alleging that he held none of his domains 
under the King, who therefore had no jurisdiction 
over him. As he persisted in this contention his 
lands were seized ; he then laid an interdict on all 
that the King possessed within the archbishopric 
and started to go to Rome, but fell ill on the way. 
The Pope, learning of the matter from his letters, 
deputed it to the Legate, who on his return in the 
following year settled the quarrel and got the Arch- 
bishop replaced in possession of his lands. 

Though much occupied in public business Blanche 
did not neglect to provide carefully for the educa- 
tion and training of the young King. She had a 
more than common affection towards him from 
his infancy; had nourished him at her own breast; 
and made him the favourite among her children. 
Being herself extremely devout, according to the 
Spanish character, and a member of the third, 
or lay, order of Saint Francis, she bent her son's 
mind in the same direction, gave him churchmen 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 33 

for preceptors, and instilled into him a great regard 
for the observances of religion and the practice 
of charitable works. She was a fond but not a 
foolish mother; and Louis was subjected to the 
strictest discipline. He was attended constantly 
by a tutor, " to instruct him in learning and good 
manners," who beat him when it was required. To 
this severity he owed a knowledge of Latin — an un- 
common accomplishment for a layman in that age. 
The Queen in her conversation impressed upon him 
forcibly the simple precepts of orthodox faith, the 
fear and obedience of God, the hatred and horror 
of heresy and sin. " I had rather," she would tell 
him, " see you dead at my feet than fallen into 
mortal sin." The piety of the time was manifested 
in the building and endowing of abbeys and 
churches; and in the spring of the year 1228 the 
Queen and the King founded the great and noble 
abbey of Royaumont, obeying an injunction of the 
late sovereign, who had bequeathed his jewels for 
such a purpose. 

Early in the same year the war in Languedoc was 
kindled into fresh flame. The operations on both 
sides were conducted Avith terrible fierceness and 
barbarity. It is related that the heretics, having 
taken two thousand common soldiers of the enemy 
in an ambush, stripped them naked, put out their 
eyes, cut off noses and ears, and of some the feet or 
hands, and turned them loose. It should be said, 
however, that the report of this cruelty rests upon 
the authority only of a single chronicler. Be the 
truth as it may, it is certain that in the summer a 
3 



34 Saint Louis [1226- 

regular and concerted invasion was made into the 
territory of Toulouse. In the army of the crusaders 
were the Archbishops of Auch and Bordeaux, the 
Bishop of Toulouse, seeking to reclaim his flock, 
and many other prelates, barons, and knights of 
Gascony and the south; the King also sent a strong 
reinforcement. They remained three months, cut- 
ting down, destroying, and burning fruit trees, 
vines, corn, and homesteads, turning the country 
into a desert up to the walls of Toulouse. This evil 
and the expectation of worse reduced the courage 
of Count Raymond, and led him to snatch at the 
hopes which were held out of making peace, espe- 
cially as the English in Gascony, from whom he 
trusted to receive some aid, disappointed him. He 
wrote to King Henry: " I went to your brother 
Richard, but his counsellors are divided and pull 
different ways, and he gave me no help." Accord- 
ingly a truce was made towards the end of the year; 
and negotiations began under the auspices of the 
Legate, whom the Pope had sent back to France at 
the King's especial prayer, giving him full powers 
to settle the business. The same commission em- 
powered him to arrange a prolongation of the truce 
with England, which was effected in the month of 
June, the Count of La Marche being compelled to 
release the King from his oath not to treat without 
his consent. 

At the end of the year the rebellion agreed on by 
the malcontents was ripe to burst ; and the power 
of the Regent and the Throne itself stood in danger. 
In gaining the alliance of Theobald of Champagne, 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 35 

who from the time of his submission served her with 
fidelity and zeal, Blanche had lost that of Philip of 
Boulogne. Theobald, it has been observed, culti- 
vated letters and the arts ; was himself a poet of 
merit ; and naturally inclined to the gay and civilised 
life of the southern Courts, whence his mother came. 
He disliked the rude habits of the barons of Northern 
Europe, whose business was war, whose diversion 
the chase, and who were not yet much infected with 
the spirit of courtesy and romantic love, the desire 
for refinement and splendour, which was born in the 
countries adjacent to the Mediterranean, was at this 
time spreading abroad, and later possessed the v;hole 
of chivalry. His antipathy to the manners of his 
peers was expressed, it seems, in an avowed con- 
tempt which they resented bitterly, and the Count 
of Boulogne most of all. Philip, moreover, found 
himself less considered by the Queen than he 
thought his due ; for she had a high sense of her 
royalty and held the barons in disdain, it was said ; 
nor indeed was it easy to give him a treatment equal 
to his own opinion of his merits. He listened readily 
therefore to the offers of the discontented party, and 
fortified his towns, Calais in particular. They under- 
took to make him regent and guardian of his nephew 
in the Queen's place. He is accused even of having 
designed to seize the crown; but such a purpose 
was not in his nature, nor is it borne out by the 
testimony of his subsequent conduct. His support- 
ers certainly had no such plan in their minds, as a 
party among them was secretly resolved to depose the 
whole family of Capet and to set up Enguerrand of 



36 Saint Lotds [1226- 

Coucy as king. This design was confined to a few 
of the barons, the most reckless, who saw, doubt- 
less, the advantage which must accrue to their 
independence by a change in the reigning dynasty; 
especially as he whom they proposed to substitute, 
though respectable from age, nobility of birth, the 
achievements of his House, and its alliance in mar- 
riage with kings and princes, was not able to com- 
pete with the magnates of France in the extent of 
his domains or the number of his vassals. It was 
reported that the foolish, ambitious old man had a 
) crown made for himself, which was the only thing 
he did to ensure the wearing of it. 

Peter of Brittany set the revolt on foot according 
to the plan concerted at Montl'hery. Before reveal- 
ing his rebellion he negotiated with the English, and 
held out such promises of recovering Normandy 
that Henry agreed to disregard the truce, and to 
send him a good body of men commanded by his 
brother Richard. Having got this succour, about 
the beginning of December he began to lay waste 
the lands on his borders. Being commanded to 
appear in the King's court to answer for his con- 
duct, he replied with a frivolous pretext for not 
coming and with a list of grievances against the 
Government, and continued to ravage, pushing his 
inroads still farther. The Queen, in anger, marched 
to punish him, and the King with her, ordering a 
levy of the communes, and summoning the barons 
to assemble their forces to her banner. They came ; 
but with a following of two knights apiece. A 
fortunate issue seemed to attend the conspiracy, 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 37 

for, as they had designed, the Queen found herself 
in face of the enemy with a much inferior force. 
Happily for her, the Count of Champagne obeyed 
her summons with the others; but, suspecting or 
knowing their intention, he raised and brought with 
him a body of three hundred knights with their full 
equipage of followers. This reinforcement changed 
the complexion of affairs; it was now the turn of 
Peter to retire and shut himself up in his castles. 
Though it was the depth of winter the Queen ad- 
vanced her army and laid siege to Belesme, a place 
strong by nature, well fortified, munitioned, and 
garrisoned, and believed to be impregnable. The 
rigour of the cold alone was enough to defeat the 
besiegers, had not Blanche shown the qualities of a 
general. She offered to buy wood, and so procured 
a vast quantity from the surrounding country. 
Huge fires were kept burning in and around the 
camp, which saved men and horses from perishing 
and enabled the siege-works to be pressed forward. 
The presence of the Queen and her hardihood in- 
cited knights and soldiers to emulation ; it was twice 
attempted to carry the fortress by storm without 
the least success; then battering machines were 
brought up, which so broke down and crumbled the 
walls and towers that the garrison, despairing of 
making a defence any longer, surrendered at discre- 
tion. Their lives were spared. At the same time 
a force was promptly despatched to Haie-Pamel in 
Normandy, which had just revolted. The rebels in 
that place were caught unprepared and the seeds of 
war were crushed out before they spread. 



2)S Saint Louis [1226- 

The Queen's rapidity of action astonished and 
disconcerted her enemies, who had not expected a 
serious attack till the winter was over. At the be- 
ginning of the rebellion the Archbishop of Bordeaux, 
accompanied by several lords of Gascony, Poitou, and 
,Normandy, had gone to England and approached 
Henry, who was keeping Christmas at Oxford, with 
a petition that he would himself come and retake 
his dominions with their assistance. He received 
them well but did not fall in with their proposal, 
being advised by his chief minister, Hubert de 
Burgh, who was not free from the suspicion of 
touching French gold, to await a better opportunity. 
A better never came ; and the present was now lost. 
Richard of Cornwall, who was already in Brittany, 
had supposed from the language of his allies that 
the King of France had no army which could make 
head against them, and that Belesme was beyond 
danger of capture. He was amazed to learn that 
Belesme was taken, and that the royal army was 
advancing in a strength which forbade resistance. 
Reproaching the Count of Brittany for deluding 
him into an expedition where nothing could be 
gathered but defeat and shame, he embarked his 
men and returned home. Peter, left alone, in order 
to gain time, pretended submission and a desire to 
amend his faults ; and entered on negotiations which 
he neither wished nor intended to have any issue. 
But his promises and the severity of the winter pre- 
vented the Queen from pursuing her advantage; 
she dismissed her forces and returned to Paris. 

Shortly after her re-entry a civil difficulty arose. 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 39 

Her method of dealing with it exemplifies the strict- 
ness, not to say severity, with which she governed. 
The University of Paris was a body of dignity and 
learning famous through Europe. It numbered the 
most renowned theologians of the age among its 
professors and attracted crowds of scholars from 
many nations. It held special privileges by grant 
of the last two Kings, and was notoriously jealous 
in affirming and enforcing them. The scholars were 
not less vehement than their masters in the cause. 
Four years before, they had made a riot and sacked 
the house of the Legate when he sided against the 
University in a dispute with the Chapter. On the 
Monday before Lent, which fell this year 
in the end of February, some scholars, natives 
of Picardy, having gone to the suburb of 
Saint Marcel on a party of pleasure, quarrelled with 
an innkeeper about the price of wine, and, making a 
disturbance, were beaten and driven away by the 
neighbours. Next day they returned with a num- 
ber of their fellows, broke into the inn, staved in 
the wine-barrels, and fell upon and wounded many 
inhabitants of the quarter. Complaint was made by 
the magistrates of Saint Marcel to the Cardinal- 
Legate and to the Bishop of Paris, in whose juris- 
diction the matter lay. Neither prelate loved the 
University: the Bishop on account of its frequent 
resistance to his authority ; the Legate from his old 
experience. Instead of judging the case they laid 
it before the Queen, recommending condign punish- 
ment of that refractory and turbulent body. Blanche 
acting in haste, says the chronicler, on an impulse 



40 Saint Louis tl226- 

of feminine passion, sent the provosts of the city 
with their archers, bidding them not spare the 
guilty. The archers going to the suburb fell with- 
out inquiry upon the first groups of scholars that 
they met and broke them up. The citizens joined 
in the attack ; some of the scholars were killed or 
I wounded, while others were thrust into the river 
and drowned. 

The rulers of the University, when they heard of 
the occurrence, stopped their lectures, and presented 
themselves before the Queen and the Legate, de- 
manding immediate satisfaction for the violence 
done and for the infraction of their privileges. As 
\ they were not graciously received and their demands 
I were refused, they ordered the scholastic exercises 
■ to cease. Most of the professors, and all the most 
learned, left the city, and were followed by the 
students, many taking oath that they would not 
return till full reparation was received. The Uni- 
versity was entirely dispersed ; groups of its mem- 
bers settled in many parts of France and of Europe, 
at Rheims, Angers, Orleans, Toulouse, in Spain and 
England and Italy. Peter of Brittany offered to 
establish them at Nantes; and Henry III. at Ox- 
I ford. The exiles took their revenge on Queen 
I Blanche and the Legate by composing indecent 
[ Latin lampoons against them both. It was more 
than two years before the quarrel was settled, by the 
mediation of the Pope, and the University returned 
to its seat, on an assurance that the King would see 
that its privileges were respected and its injuries 
repaired. 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 41 

The conditions of peace to be granted to Toulouse 
were under discussion from the beginning of the 
year between the Legate and the Archbishop of 
Narbonne and the agents and friends of the Count. 
The negotiations drew to a head in April, . _ 
when a treaty was concluded at Meaux, a ^I'^cs 
town of Brie, in the dominions of Theobald 
of Champagne, whose arbitration was used in the 
affair. By his advice and that of all his friends 
Raymond threw himself without reserve upon the 
mercy of King and Church. The terms imposed 
upon him ran : that the King, considering the 
humbleness of the Count and hoping that he would 
continue faithful to him and to the Church, was 
willing to be gracious to him and to accept his 
daughter Joan in marriage for one of the Princes, 
his brothers. That the provinces of Toulouse, of 
Cahors excepting its capital, of Agen, and half of 
Albi, should be restored to him, to be enjoyed for 
his hfe, but without power of alienation. That 
after his death Toulouse should pass in the first 
place to the children of Joan by the King's brother; 
and, failing these, to the King; the other provinces 
to go to Joan in event of the Count dying without 
sons. That the Count should surrender to the King 
the other half of the province of Albi, and all the 
territories held or claimed by him on this side of 
the Rhone, excepting those expressly reserved 
above. That he should surrender to the Church 
all his territories and claims on the far side of the 
Rhone within the Empire. That he should level 
the walls and fill up the moat of Toulouse and thirty 



42 Saint Louis tl226- 

other named towns. That he should put into the 
King's hands, as a pledge, for ten years, the castle 
of Toulouse, after fortifying it at his own expense, 
and eight other castles. That he should restore to 
the churches in his country the lands he had taken 
away, and should pay them fourteen thousand 
marks in four years. That he should spend four 
thousand marks in maintaining at Toulouse for ten 
years two professors of theology, two of law, six of 
the liberal arts, two of grammar. That after re- 
ceiving absolution he should take the cross, and 
within two years' time should go to make war upon 
the Saracens, and remain for five years. That he 
should exterminate heresy from his dominions as 
far as he was able. That he should make war upon 
his late ally, the Count of Foix, and on others who 
still refused to submit to the Church; and should 
keep for himself all places that he captured unless 
the King wished to have them. 

He promised to remain a prisoner in the Louvre 
until his daughter and five of the castles to be sur- 
rendered were placed in the hands of the King's 
ofificers; and to give hostages until the wall and 
moat of Toulouse were destroyed to a length of a 
thousand yards. The treaty having been signed, 
Raymond, together with other excommunicated 
persons, was led to the altar on Good Friday, bare- 
footed and in his shirt, and was solemnly reconciled 
to the Church in the presence of Cardinal Romano, 
Legate in France, and Cardinal Otho, Legate in 
England. Afterwards he received the cross from 
the hands of the Legate, and did homage to the 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 43 

King. An old author has observed that it was 
touching to see so noble and powerful a count 
brought into such a posture of humiliation ; but 
that it was a great triumph for the young monarch, 
on whom God seemed to confer this signal honour 
in the beginning of his reign, to subdue an enemy 
who had resisted many mighty adversaries and to 
impose on him several hard conditions, any one of 
which might have satisfied a King who had taken 
him captive on a pitched field of battle. 

A royal ordinance was issued for the resettlement 
of the Church in Languedoc and for the suppression 
of heresy. The provisions were severe; but the 
execution was committed to Peter of Colmieu, a 
cleric distinguished for moderation, charity, and 
uprightness, who had refused nine bishoprics. He 
was no friend to and was hated by the Preaching 
Friars, who were the party in the Church most vio- 
lent and cruel towards heretics. He succeeded in 
reconciling the people of Toulouse, and induced them 
to receive their Bishop and to join against the Count 
of Foix and other heretics who were still in arms. 
The Count of Foix soon submitted and made his 
peace in September, surrendering several strongholds 
to the King. Meamvhile Count Raymond, having 
given up his daughter and his castles and obtained 
some modification in the terms of his treaty, returned 
to Toulouse, the Legate following close behind. A 
council assembled there in November to ratify the 
peace, to pass ordinances for the establishment of 
the university which Raymond had undertaken to 
endow, and to frame regulations for dealing with the 



44 Saint Louis L1226- 

heretics. It established against them that system 
of espionage, denunciation, and punishment, which 
afterwards fixed itself in a severer form and was 
known as the Inquisition. That the country was 
not thoroughly pacified was manifest after the de- 
parture of the Legate, who returned to Rome at the 
end of the year, when the Bishop underwent great 
vexation and persecution from the citizens, and 
several persons who had shown most zeal against 
heresy were assassinated. 

The Count of Brittany carried on his pretence of 
submission until after Easter; then abandoned it, 
and sent his bands to ravage over the borders. He 
had arranged that Philip of Boulogne and the barons 
leagued with him should fall upon Champagne at 
the same time, so that the King might be deprived 
of a valuable ally ; and that an English expedition 
should cross into Brittany to help. The confeder- 
ates, however, were slow to move, and the Queen 
was swift. She threw an army quickly along the 
Loire, and captured the strong places of Chateaudun 
and Chantoceaux, lying on either side of the river 
about five leagues above Nantes. Peter hastened 
to protest that he was anxious to make peace; and 
produced so much effect by the several missions 
which he sent, that the Queen and King, putting 
garrisons in the captured places, withdrew the rest 
of their forces from his country. Meanwhile the 
barons had done nothing. The King of England 
had gathered a host of men and munitions of war 
at Portsmouth before Michaelmas, but found no 
sufficient number of ships to carry the expedition. 







CASTLE OF COUCY, IN THE TIME OF SAINT LOUIS. 

FROM A DRAWING BY M. VIOLLET-UE-DUC. 



1231] StriLggle against the Mag7iates 45 

He attributed the fault to his minister, Hubert de 
Burgh, whom he pubHcly with violence accused of 
having treasonably procured the failure of transport, 
for a bribe of five thousand marks received from the 
Queen of France. Before the preparations were 
made good Peter himself arrived, breathing war, 
and undertook to hold Brittany as a fief of England. 
But as autumn drew on, it was resolved, after long 
discussion, not to trust the chance of storms and a 
winter campaign, but to defer the invasion till the 
following spring. 

A short time after the outbreak of Brittany had 
been checked, the confederated magnates attacked 
the Count of Champagne. The Count of Boulogne, 
the princes of Dreux, the Duke of Burgundy, En- 
guerrand of Coucy, and many others invaded his 
domain from all sides with their troops, pillaging 
and destroying the country and the towns, as they 
gathered towards the rendezvous which had been 
named at Troyes, the capital of the province. Many 
places were deserted and burned by the Count's own 
order, lest the stores in them should fall into the 
enemy's hands; but Troyes, gallantly defended by 
Simon of Joinville, father of the historian, repulsed 
their assault. They then encamped a few miles 
away. Theobald was unable to meet them in the 
field, being forsaken by many of his own vassals 
who leagued themselves to the invaders: he im- 
plored help from the royal power, which the mutual 
obligation of fealty bound to assist and defend its 
faithful lieges. It was the interest no less than the 
duty of the Regent to listen, since she was well 



46 Saint Louis [1226- 

aware of the designs of the confederates, and of the 
danger to which she herself would be exposed when 
they had crushed her chief ally. She issued letters 
patent commanding the barons to leave Count 
Theobald in peace ; and when these were unheeded, 
gathered an army and marched with the King into 
Champagne, encamping close to Troyes, where 
Theobald and the Duke of Lorraine, his ally, joined 
her with what muster they could raise. 

A fresh royal command was sent to the barons to 
leave Champagne, and due course of justice offered 
if they had any complaint against the Count. They 
replied insolently, that the Queen was defending 
her husband's murderer; that Champagne belonged 
to Alix, Queen of Cyprus, Theobald's cousin; and 
that if the King would retire to a place of safety 
they would fight out their quarrel with Theobald 
and his friends. They were answered that if there 
was to be fighting the King would take his share; 
and that he would not parley till they retreated 
beyond the borders. Discomfited by this firmness, 
they retired from Troyes a short distance towards 
Burgundy, and the royal forces followed. Mean- 
while Count Ferrand of Flanders, a faithful ad- 
herent to the Regent since his release from prison, 
entered with his men the lands of Boulogne, which 
he pillaged fiercely. The news troubled Philip; 
who now also began to perceive that his influence 
was not unquestioned with his party: he was 
warned, say some, by a message from Blanche of 
the ambitions of Enguerrand of Coucy, There- 
upon, it is narrated, his heart smote him because of 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 47 

his treason, and he began to hold the language of 
submission. " You speak ill," he said to his pro- 
testing followers; " we shall be perjured and traitors 
to the King if we trespass further against his com- 
mand, seeing he is my brother's son, and my liege 
lord, and I am his liege man." The astonished 
barons gazed at one another in confusion; then 
broke into fresh remonstrance and entreaties not to 
betray the common cause. " God's name! folly 
left is better than folly kept," was his only answer. 
He proceeded to write to Blanche that he was un- 
willing to disobey her and the King; and left the 
camp. The magnates, thus deserted by their leader, 
and fearing, says a chronicler, the vengeance of the 
Queen, " who was good at rewarding according to 
their merits those who had deserved her hate or 
love," hastened to make truce with the Count of 
Champagne and to disperse to their homes. The 
King and Queen returned to Paris. 

Pope Gregory, who had a particular affection for 
the kingdom of France, was much distressed by the 
constant wars with which it was afflicted. He wrote 
to the Bishops of Senlis, Orleans, and Meaux in the 
end of this year, ordering them to use all . _ 
endeavours to appease the troubles; to the ' ' 
Archbishop of Lyons to a similar effect ; and 
to the Duke of Burgundy an injunction to remain 
loyal to the King and to urge other princes to keep 
the peace. His exhortations bore no immediate 
fruit. Immediately after Christmas the Count of 
Bar attacked the Duke of Lorraine and burned a 
great number of villages; the Duke with his ally, 



48 Samt Lotus [1226- 

the Count of Champagne, returned the invasion, 
and burning and destroying, inflicted more damage 
than he had received. The Count of Champagne, 
assisted by Ferrand of Flanders, ravaged also the 
domain of the Count of Saint Paul, in revenge for 
the part he had taken against him the year before. 
At the same time a private war was devastating 
Bourbon and Auvergne. 

In January, Peter of Brittany renewed his rebel- 
lion and sent a formal message to the King, recap- 
. _ itulating his grievances, renouncing his 

' * homage and fealty, and declaring war. He 
was known to be leagued with the English 
King, who was suspected also to have an under- 
standing, if not an alliance, with the malcontent 
barons. In its actions at any rate their party was 
an accomplice with the enemy ; since the quarrel 
which they still declared and pursued against the 
Counts of Champagne and Flanders distracted 
the strength of France, and deprived the King of the 
service and support of the greater part of his realm. 

This effect was not long in appearing. The royal 
army, entering Anjou, occupied Angers and other 
places which Peter claimed. But the Count of 
Boulogne, the Duke of Burgundy, and the rest, as 
soon as the forty days of feudal service were com- 
plete, asserted their right to be discharged from 
further attendance, and returned home to prepare 
an invasion of Flanders and Champagne. The 
Counts of those provinces in their turn hurried back 
to defend their dominions; and the King, left 
with none but his own following, turned into the 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 49 

Limousin, where he received the submission and 
homage of the nobles of the district, who recognised 
him as Duke of Guyenne. 

Theobald of Champagne, embarrassed by the 
treachery of part of his vassals, could do no more 
than garrison a few strong places and set guard 
over the fords. The troops of the barons ravaged 
his country without pity, sparing only the houses 
and lands of those who joined them. They burned 
to the ground Fismes, Epernay, Vertus, Sezanne, 
and other towns, and would have reached Provins, 
where the Count lay, had not the garrisons them- 
selves of the castles turned the whole country into 
a desert, removing or destroying all stores of food, 
till risk of starvation forced the invaders back. 
Ferrand of Flanders on his side took the offensive, 
and did great damage by raiding the territory of 
Boulogne. Meanwhile the Regent, being unable 
to prosecute the war actively, sent her envoys into 
Brittany to treat with the nobles of that province, 
who were, many of them, on ill terms with their 
Count, to foment their grievances, or to buy their 
adhesion, or at least a promise not to fight for the 
English. The mission was well supplied from the 
royal treasury, and drew a considerable party into 
engagements of support. 

At last, in May, the English came. Henry him- 
self led the expedition, landing at Saint Malo. He 
was received as a friend and sovereign by . _ 

Count Peter and a part of the Bretons: but 

1230 
those whom the Queen had gained fortified 

their castles against him. He established his 



50 Saint Louis [1226- 

headquarters at Nantes, where he lay waiting for his 
troops to assemble. In face of the foreign invasion 
the Count of Boulogne and his allies were summoned 
peremptorily to suspend their domestic war and to 
assist in defending the kingdom. They obeyed so 
far as to make a truce till September; and though 
it does not appear that they joined their forces to 
the King, the Counts of Champagne and Flanders 
at any rate were set free to help him with their full 
strength. By the end of May the King and Queen 
gathered an army, with which they moved on to the 
southern border of Brittany. On the way they rcr 
newed the treaty of Vendome with the Count of La 
Marche, and received the adhesion of several barons 
of Poitou. They advanced to Ancenis, where they 
summoned the loyal nobles of the province to meet 
them. At that place a court was held, in which the 
bishops and barons of the army gave sentence against 
Count Peter, proclaiming him deposed from his 
regency on account of repeated treasons. There- 
upon the loyal Bretons did homage to the King 
and entered into a mutual engagement with him 
against the Count and the English, reserving, how- 
ever, the rights of the heir of Brittany when he 
should come of age. A bull of the Pope was ob- 
tained to absolve them from the oaths of fealty 
formerly taken to Peter. 

They then besieged and took Chateaudun, which 
was occupied by an English garrison and not above 
five leagues from Nantes. Henry did not attempt 
to relieve the place or to carry out any other military 
operation. Some knights of Normandy came to him 




FIGURE ON TOMB OF PETER MAUCLERC, COUNT 
OP BRITTANY. 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 51 

with an invitation to proceed thither, assuring him 
of an easy reconquest of the duchy. The enterprise 
was decHned, by the counsel of Hubert de Burgh, 
as too dangerous; and the intending rebels got no- 
thing but the confiscation of their lands and castles, 
which were at once seized by the royal lieutenants. 
The plans of the English were laid rather towards 
Poitou. They had expected the Count of La Marche 
to come to Nantes; and were disappointed when he 
forsook them, as they said, and joined the King of 
France. Nevertheless they had a strong party in 
those regions, of which the principal persons were 
Reginald of Pons and Aimery of Rochechouart, re- 
lying on whose assistance Henry proposed to march 
through into Gascony, where his presence was re- 
quired by the Governor. The Poitevins on their 
part were no less anxious for his support. Aimery 
of Rochechouart wrote in July, that without English 
help he could do nothing should the French attack 
him. Reginald of Pons also begged urgently for 
aid, writing that the Regent had declared in the 
presence of several persons that she would strip him 
if the King kept his own. Accordingly Henry, 
taking advantage of the retirement of the French 
army into Anjou, entered Poitou, and thence his 
own province of Gascony. He gained no success 
beyond the capture of Mirabeau on his return ; and 
brought back his army to Nantes, where it lay in 
inglorious ease and debauch, doing nothing, says the 
chronicler, but spending an inestimable amount of 
money. In October he returned to England. The 
reasons are given in a letter written by Henry, at 



52 Saint Louis [1226- 

the end of September, to Geoffrey of Lusignan. He 
says that he is sick ; that the climate of Poitou has in- 
creased his malady; that his brother Richard also is 
sick; that he wishes to gather more men and money 
for a future campaign ; that he is leaving the Duke 
of Brittany, the Earl of Chester, and the Earl Mar- 
shal to carry on the war meanwhile. It was a wreck 
of the English army that returned. The sickness 
that had attacked Henry carried off many of his fol- 
lowers. Their diseases were aggravated by the great 
heat of summer, by their dissolute manner of living, 
and intemperance in food and drink. Their horses 
were dead, their money spent, and their stores con- 
sumed. The Earl of Chester and the Earl Marshal, 
who remained with five hundred knights and a thou- 
sand men-at-arms, ravaged the borders of Anjou and 
Normandy, then retired into Brittany for the winter. 
The march of the English into Gascony, and their 
inactivity afterwards, allowed a breathing time which 
the Queen spent to good purpose in composing the 
feuds of the magnates and turning their truce into a 
. _ stable peace. The treaty was made at Com- 
piegne in September. It was stipulated by 
the barons that Theobald of Champagne 
should expiate the faults alleged against him and 
remove his presence, the cause of so much discord, 
by undertaking a crusade with a hundred knights to 
make war on the Infidels in Palestine. The differ- 
ences of the Counts of Boulogne and Flanders, of 
the Count of Bar and the Duke of Lorraine, and 
of the other parties to the late quarrels were also 
settled. A stream of gold from the royal coffers 



1231] Struggle against the Magnates 53 

smoothed the difficulties of negotiation. The Count 
of Boulogne in particular received eight thousand 
pounds to compensate the damage done to his lands. 
The King and his mother swore on the Gospels that 
they would respect the privileges of all, and would 
judge all within the kingdom according to their due 
and rightful customs. 

Peace being made, the King held a great as- 
sembly in December at Melun, where a strict 
ordinance was passed against the Jews and their 
usury. The swift and spreading growth of that evil 
frequently required correction, which the rulers of 
the age were rarely unwilling to take in hand. The 
ordinance was set forth to be enacted by the King, 
according to the advice of his barons, for the good 
of the realm, and the safety of his own and his 
father's soul; it fixed a term for payment of exist- 
ing debts without usurious interest, and forbade 
borrowing from the Jews at all in the future. The 
Counts of Boulogne, Champagne, La Marche, Bar, 
and Saint Paul, the Duke of Burgundy, Enguerrand 
of Coucy, and many besides, set their seals to the in- 
strument, and swore to do all in their power to carry 
it out and to enforce observance on others; in spite 
of which, usury and the Jews continued to flourish. 

Other troubles were appeased for the present ; but 
Count Peter with the English garrison remained. 
There was no fresh invasion ; and war, which had 
slept through the winter, was not resumed . _ 

till the summer of the next year, when the ' * 

. 1231 

royal army marched into Brittany. It suf- 
fered some partial reverses and had little fortune in 



54 Saint Louis [1226-1231 

the campaign ; for the country was then, as always, 
difficult to conquer. On the other hand, the strong- 
est barons of the lower province held for the King; 
and the English had no interest to continue a de- 
fensive struggle, if terms could be obtained. The 
Pope was exhorting both sides to peace, having 
ordered the Archbishop of Sens in France and the 
Bishop of Winchester in England to work to that 
end. A truce was made in July for three years, 
between the Count of Brittany and the Earl of 
Chester for the English on one part, and the Count 
of Boulogne and the Archbishop of Rheims for the 
French on the other. The Count of La Marche 
was also a party to the agreement. Peter was left 
in possession of Brittany, but bound not to enter 
the territories of the King or of the Count of La 
Marche during the time of truce. In August he 
accompanied the Earl of Chester to England, where 
he was well received and given a pension of five 
thousand marks. 





THE COUNT OF CHAMPAGNE 



THE COUNT OF PROVENCE 



CHAPTER III 

THE PERIOD OF PEACE 
1231-1236 

A PERIOD of repose followed, most grateful to 
France, harassed and desolated in all its 
provinces by continual warfare since the 
King's accession. Up to this time Queen Blanche 
had prevented all the designs of her numerous ill- 
wishers, had established herself firmly in the regency, 
and maintained if not strengthened the authority 
of the Crown. The rivals and opponents of royal 
power were divided, checked, or conciliated, though 
still their arms remained formidable, and their hos- 
tility was asleep, not dead. The settlement of Tou- 
louse, however, and the repulse of the English 
were definite gains; as also was the vigour acquired 
to the monarchy by constant rallying and use of its 
forces; and the prestige which it earned by a course 
of successful resistance. The tide, if not turned in 
the King's favour, seemed no longer to be rising 
against him ; and the quiet which now ensued, to 
be a respite granted for the repair and refreshment 
of his powers, rather than a momentary withdrawal 



55 



56 Saint Louis [I231- 

of his enemies in order to advance again with double 
violence. But although war ceased, a crop of less 
urgent troubles sprang up, as was to be expected 
from the late disorders, which had engaged so much 
attention and energy that ordinary matters went 
begging, and from the seeds and remnants of en- 
mity and opposition which still infected the minds 
of many important people. 

The great ecclesiastical persons of the realm 
leaned, as a rule, to the side of the Crown while it 
struggled to maintain itself against the assaults of 
the magnates. They were inclined that way both 
by sympathy and interest. Being religious by pro- 
fession, and often men of piety and learning, they 
were sensible to the blessings of peace, order, and 
equal justice. Being Churchmen, they remembered 
that the House of Capet was the hereditary friend 
and supporter of the Church. And they did not, 
like the prelates of the Empire, stand so high in 
revenue and dominion and the number of their sub- 
jects, that they could deal with the secular princes 
of France on an equal footing of temporal power, 
and be sure of sharing all the spoils of authority 
stripped from the King. Rather it was to be ex- 
pected that, if once the monarchy were reduced to 
a name and a shadow, the great barons would apply 
themselves, without any check, to bring down the 
pretensions of the prelates and encroach upon their 
possessions. But as soon as the bond of common 
danger was slackened, the conflict, usual through- 
out Christendom, between the claims of Church and 
of State began to be active. 



1236] The Period of Peace ' 57 

The Regent was not of a temper to let the 
authority which she had upheld against the fierce 
attack of arms be whittled away by spiritual 
weapons. Her difference with Theobald, Arch- 
bishop of Rouen, has been related above. He died 
soon after; and she found no less cause to complain 
of the conduct of Maurice his successor. This pre- 
late is named as a devout and upright man, charit- 
able to the poor and ascetic in life — the more 
tenacious for his virtues of the rights he arrogated 
to himself and his order. The dispute first . _ 
arose over the election of an abbess in his 
diocese. The Archbishop took the matter 
with a high hand, and excommunicated all the nuns 
of the convent who had submitted themselves to the 
royal decision. He was summoned to answer be- 
fore the King on this and on other pleas; and re- 
fused to appear, saying he had no judge but God 
and the Pope, in matters spiritual and temporal 
alike. The claim to be exempt from feudal law did 
not pass. The lands, houses, and possessions of his 
see, which were held as fiefs from the King, were 
seized by royal officers. Unable to resist and un- 
willing to submit he betook himself to the last 
arguments of the Church. First he ordered his 
clergy to remove the images of the Virgin from all 
the churches, so that the people could no longer 
pray before them ; then he did the same by the 
images of Christ. As the Queen did not yield, he 
laid an interdict on the royal domains in his diocese, 
forbidding the celebration of mass in any church 
or monastery therein, and the giving of Christian 



58 Saint Louh [1231- 

burial. Finally he extended the interdict to the 
whole diocese, prohibiting all sacraments except 
baptism and extreme unction. But these measures, 
which deprived a province of nearly all the consola- 
tions of religion, were fruitless to coerce the Regent. 
The interdict lay for a year, till a settlement of the 
quarrel was obtained by the personal mediation of 
the Pope. 

The affair of Beauvais is another example. That 
town was under the jurisdiction of its bishop, but 
certain rights of appeal and supervision were par- 
ticularly reserved to the King. The Bishop was 
Milo, of the House of Chastillon, Counts of Saint 
Paul. Belonging by birth to the party of the 
magnates, he had joined in the early opposition to 
the Queen and marked himself by the virulence of 
his tongue. In an assembly of lords and bishops, 
where she was present, he had called her adulteress, 
and accused in the grossest terms her friendship 
with the Cardinal-Legate. This was one of the 
common slanders on which the barons nourished 
their enmity, but it could not bear the light; the 
speaker had been put to shame by the Queen's in- 
dignant reply and condemned even by his friends. 
A good woman is slow to forgive such an offence ; 
and it may be supposed that Blanche was not in- 
clined to be lenient to the Bishop of Beauvais when 
he crossed her path. Milo was a spendthrift and a 
. _ man of blood. Overwhelmed with debts, 
he had gone to Italy in 1230, to recoup him- 
self by mercenary war; but, returning, he 
fell into an ambush, and lost the fruit of his cam- 




u o 

I £ 



1236] The Period of Peace 59 

paigns. He came back to find Beauvais torn by fac- 
tion, the richer trades being at feud with the rest of 
the citizens. To settle the quarrel the King nomin- 
ated a mayor from outside, who was accepted by 
the rich party. But the others raised a riot, drove 
the mayor and his principal supporters into a house, 
set fire to it, killed twenty, wounded many others, 
and dragged the mayor through the streets with 
insults and beating. 

The King and Queen were at Compiegne, which is 
not far from Beauvais; the Bishop was at his house 
outside the town. He went thither at once unat- 
tended, a proceeding which gave strong colour to 
the suspicion that he had himself instigated and 
supported the rioters. His behaviour strengthened 
this view. The leaders of the mob received him 
with open arms; he bade them throw themselves on 
his mercy for what had taken place ; but did not 
attempt to arrest them, or to stop the flight which 
they presently took, having received a hint to make 
themselves safe. Meanwhile the King and Queen 
had heard the news and were advancing with their 
escort and a hasty levy of men from the neighbour- 
hood. A message of their approach came to Beau- 
vais in the night ; and at dawn they reached the 
Bishop's house. Milo sent a message, then came 
himself, begging the King not to enter Beauvais but 
to leave the matter to him, and promising to punish 
the guilty. The only reply he got was that the 
King would come into the town and do such justice 
as he saw fit. The next day the royal party entered. 
An inquiry was held into the disturbance, a number 



6o Saint Lotiis 



[1231- 



of the rioters were seized, the houses of the leaders 
demolished, and themselves sentenced to banish- 
ment, prison, or heavy fines. The Bishop protested 
all the time that these proceedings infringed his 
rights; and was answered that he might carry his 
complaint to the royal court, where he would have 
a fair hearing before his peers. 

Feudal custom bound the Bishop to defray the 
King's expenses whenever he came to Beauvais; 
and they were demanded accordingly. This right 
at any rate was clear; but Milo, whose feelings were 
sore and his purse empty, refused to pay, pretend- 
ing that he desired to consult his Chapter. His 
goods were seized at once, and a guard was left 
in the town to occupy his palace and receive his 
revenues. The Archbishop of Rheims and the 
bishops of the province took up the cause of their 
colleague, as one in which their common claims and 
privileges were involved. Their conduct in the 
matter was governed by party zeal more than by 
considerations of justice ; in hotly supporting a 
bad case they ran where they could not stand, and 
neither carried their particular end nor strengthened 
the position of their order. They were partly led 
away by the Archbishop, who being a Dreux and 
brother to Peter of Brittany saw an opportunity to 
embarrass the King's government. He called a 
provincial synod which sent deputies to demand 
Milo's reinstatement in his fiefs. This was refused 
on the ground that the whole affair related to the 
Bishop's temporal rights, in respect of which he was 
subject, like any other baron, to the feudal court 



1236] The Period of Peace 6i 

before which the King invited him to appear. The 
prelates would not be satisfied, and began to inter- 
dict their dioceses. But the cathedral Chapters, 
which had not been consulted, refused to obey the 
interdicts and appealed to Rome, in which course 
they were encouraged by royal letters. The Pope 
was obliged to Milo by old services rendered in his 
Italian wars and wrote to the King and Queen in 
his favour. But he did not approve the hasty, un- 
reasonable behaviour of the Bishops, and the inter- 
dict was ordered to be removed. This was done at 
a second provincial council, where most of the pre- 
lates avowed their error; while Milo, in fits of rage, 
covered them with violent abuse. He started for 
Rome soon after to plead his own cause, but died 
on the way of a sudden sickness and was buried at 
Assisi. 

It may be supposed that the politic brains of 
Count Peter of Brittany did not rest from contriving 
mischief through the period of truce. The Countess 
of Champagne died in July, 123 1 ; and the scheme 
of a new combination was quickly built up on this 
opportunity. Theobald was to marry Yolande, 
Peter's daughter, and be reconciled to all his old 
enemies. It was pointed out to him that his cousin 
Alix, Queen of Cyprus, daughter of his father's 
elder brother, had certain claims to the possession 
of Champagne which had never been examined 
thoroughly ; that, if she were invited, she might 
come to France to press her cause, and might even 
win it, if well supported ; that the danger could be 
averted by a close alliance with the Houses of 



62 Saint Louis [1231- 

Brittany and Dreux; that the Count of Boulogne, 
too, was ready to favour the marriage. 

Such arguments prevailed : the matter was ar- 
ranged ; the day and the place fixed ; and Theobald 
was at Chateau-Thierry, on his way to a neighbour- 
ing abbey, whither the bride had been carried already 
by the barons her kinsfolk. But Geoffrey de la 
Chapelle met him with a message from the King: 
" My lord Count of Champagne, the King has 
heard that you have agreed with Count Peter of 
Brittany to marry his daughter. He bids you not do 
this, unless you wish to lose all that you have in 
France. For you know that the Count of Brittany 
has done the King more wrong than any man alive." 
These plain words taught Theobald that he must 
choose his side, and that he could not gain the 
friendship of the barons without losing that of the 
Queen. He therefore returned home, leaving Yo- 
lande's kinsmen to nurse their anger and disap- 
pointment. The projected marriage had seriously 
alarmed the Queen ; and she procured a papal bull 
expressly forbidding it as incestuous on the ground 
of close relationship between the parties, they being 

A^ third cousins. But before long Theobald 
D 

was safely married to Margaret, daughter 

of Archambaud, lord of Bourbon, who was 
constable for the King in Auvergne. 

The young King grew up during these years to 
manhood and the rule of his realm. His mother 
was his only counsellor, and now and for some time 
longer kept the reins in her own hands. But he was 
her constant companion, both in the expeditions of 



1236] The Period of Peace 6 



o 



the earlier wars, and in the progresses through the 
country which occupied much of her time while 
peace lasted. He could have had no better teacher 
in the arts of policy and government, and none 
more assiduous in the lessons of piety. And he was 
an apt pupil. His character so much resembled 
hers, that it never rebelled against the early mould 
which was impressed upon it, or grew away with 
advancing years from the beliefs and feelings which 
had governed his youth. Such divergence is the 
common lot; and where the seeds of it exist, there 
is ordinarily little hope that filial love and venera- 
tion will check their growth. But Louis was not 
put to the trial : he continued to see eye to eye with 
his mother, and it is not recorded that to the end of 
her life they had a serious disagreement. 

Together, therefore, they were constantly moving 
through the kingdom, or rather through those parts 
of it which depended directly on the Crown, setting 
matters to rights and displaying and consolidat- 
ing the royal authority. They paid many visits 
to Poissy, the King's birthplace, to which he was 
greatly attached. Much time also was passed at 
the abbey of Royaumont, then in course of build- 
ing, where Louis often laboured on the masonry 
with his own hands. It was his general practice to 
distribute alms to the poor at the places where he 
stayed ; not wastefully, but as a duty expressly en- 
joined by Scripture. He was noted to be courteous 
and gentle in demeanour, of a patient temper, and 
to abstain from oaths. He was moderate and regu- 
lar in his manner of living and observed assiduously 



64 Saint Louis [1231- 

the fasts and worship of the Church. The Queen 
was better pleased with the society of men of re- 
ligion, learning, or experience in affairs, than with 
that of courtiers; and her son mixed much in the 
same company. He was not averse to the chase or 
any other honest diversion ; nor was he yet ascetic 
as he afterwards became. Some chroniclers, eager 
to exalt his saintly credit, have attributed to this 
period of his youth the renunciation of the pomps 
and vanities of the world, and those austere, self- 
imposed penances, which in fact he practised after 
his return from Palestine. But the accounts of his 
household expenses remain to confute the pious 
fiction. They show sums disbursed, not only in 
charity and good works, but on such matters as 
furnished the ornament and amusement of life in 
those times — minstrels and musicians ; lions and 
porcupines and other animals of a menagerie; fal- 
cons and falconers; dogs and huntsmen and horses. 
Money was spent on feasts also, and on gold and 
silver plate ; on robes of purple and scarlet and on 
silks and furs. But it may be observed that, in later 
years at any rate, the King's personal needs seem 
to have been supplied at less cost than those of his 
younger brothers. 

Louis being of marriageable age, it was thought 
expedient for his own good and that of the kingdom 
that he should take a wife. A suitable match was 
found in Margaret, eldest daughter of Raymond 
Berenger, Count of Provence. Her father, a younger 
stem of the Kings of Aragon, was a valiant soldier 
in the continual wars of the South, and a wise prince; 



1236] The Period of Peace 65 

but his power and wealth were not equal to his birth 
or merits. Her mother was Beatrix of the House of 
Savoy, a woman of great sagacity and understand- 
ing and of a high ambition, which was fully gratified 
by the marriage of her daughters. They had been 
brought up to be queens; and all fulfilled their 
destiny. 

Margaret was as noble as any lady between the 
seas, and as beautiful, if the poets can be trusted. \ 
Her only dowry was ten thousand marks, most of 
which was never paid. But she was well endowed 
by nature and education ; for her father had trained 
her in religion, and her mother in prudence. She 
was simple in dress and of a remarkable generosity. 
When the marriage had been arranged, she was 
fetched from Provence by a magnificent embassy 
headed by the Archbishop of Sens. William, Bishop 
of Valence, one out of many uncles, accompanied 
her. The King and his mother met her at Sens, 
with a numerous gathering of lords and ladies. 
They were married there on the Saturday before 
Ascension, in the year 1234; and on Sunday the 
Queen was crowned and anointed in the cathedral 
of Saint Stephen. Then followed a feast of great 
expense. The King made new knights and dis- 
tributed alms and gifts. The bridal party reached 
Paris in ten days, and were received with tourneys, 
festivities, and rejoicings in a city celebrated even 
then for gaiety. 

It is related that Blanche, having got her son 
married, grew jealous of the close affection which 
sprang up between him and his wife. Joinville says i 



66 Saint Louis [1231- 

in his chronicle that this weakness so possessed her 
that she could not bear to see them much together; 
and became particularly fond of staying at Pontoise, 
because there she occupied a chamber between the 
King and the Queen, who lay on different floors. 
To escape her notice they used to meet on a private 
staircase, and when the ushers saw the Queen- 
mother going to visit the King, they beat on the 
door with their rods, so that he might hear and run 
back to his apartments before she came; and the 
same when she went to visit the Queen. Once too, 
after childbirth, Margaret was lying in danger of 
death, it was thought, and Louis was with her, 
when Queen Blanche came and taking him by the 
hand said, " Come away; you have nothing to do 
here." The Queen cried out, " Alas! you will let 
me see my lord neither dead nor alive," and fell into 
a faint. The King ran back, thinking she was dead, 
and they had great pains to bring her to. Bystand- 
ers at a sick-bed are not always convenient, and it 
may be that the chronicler in narrating this incident 
does injustice to Blanche; but the jealousy between 
the two Queens is not doubtful. 

The truce with England expired the same year on 
the Nativity of Saint John ; and that stiff-necked 
rebel, the Count of Brittany, prepared to 
renew the struggle. Already, at the time 
of the King's marriage, before the truce 
ended, he was ravaging the lands of Breton barons 
of the royal party ; and the King of England de- 
spatched sixty knights and two thousand Welshmen 
to help. The Regent, on her side, was not idle, but 



1236] The Period of Peace 67 

sent reinforcements to the garrisons of her friends in 
Brittany, and a summons to all the nobles of middle 
France and Normandy and to Flanders and Cham- 
pagne, to the bishops also and the towns, to bring 
their levies to a rendezvous for the coming war. 
One army was gathered at Niort in Poitou, another 
at Mans in Maine ; and great requisitions were made 
for transport and supplies. It seemed that all the 
growing strength and renewed vigour of the mon- 
archy was to be applied to crush inveterate rebellion 
in its native seat. As soon as the truce expired the 
King entered Brittany with his forces. There was 
no question of meeting him on a pitched field; it 
was a war of skirmish and siege, in which the de- 
fenders did not fail to reap some advantage. But 
as the invaders divided into three columns and made 
regular advances, subduing the country as they 
went, ultimate conquest could only be delayed, not 
avoided. Peter was thrown on his own resources; 
no more succours came from England ; the Count of 
La Marche did not stir; his old confederates were 
dead, or unready, or reconciled, or afraid to move. 
He asked for an armistice in August, that he might 
go to England to see if his ally would come over to 
help him ; failing that, he promised to deliver Brit- 
tany and all his castles to the King. The armistice 
was granted to run till November. The Regent 
had been in negotiation with England since the 
previous year; and had good reason, perhaps, to 
expect Peter's mission to be fruitless. But he was 
obliged to give hostages and three strong places as 
security for his word, which made its fulfilment 



68 Saint Louis 



[1231- 



safer. He crossed the Channel and got a cold and 
discouraging reception. The English King's ex- 
perience of campaigns in Brittany had not been 
such as to tempt him to further efforts; and at the 
moment he was not disposed to foreign adventures, 
especially with an expensive and unprofitable ally, 
already three parts conquered. His final answer 
was that the Count must shift for himself; that not 
all the treasures of England would suffice to defend 
Brittany. 

Peter returned indignant, to stomach the inevi- 
table submission as best he could. His mind was 
soon made up to the unpalatable fare; he even 
forced an appetite, and not only swallowed the mess 
but licked the platter. He came to Paris with a 
halter round his neck, bearing himself as a con- 
demned traitor, and in the most abject form of 
humiliation surrendered himself and the duchy, with 
its towns and men and castles, into the King's 
hand. But, having yielded, reasons of prudence 
forbade that he should be pressed too hard. For 
Brittany was less fitted than any other province to 
be welded into the inner frame of the kingdom; if 
the King held it he must hold it by the sword. 
And the destruction of Peter, unprofitable by itself, 
would outrage the feelings and excite the alarm of 
other magnates whose ally he had been and whose 
peer and kinsman he was. He was allowed, there- 
fore, to keep Brittany as Regent for his son, as be- 
fore; but gave up the places in Anjou and Maine 
which he had received under former treaties. He 
engaged not to agree with the King's enemies; and 



1236] The Period of Peace 69 

to be governed entirely by his decision in the settle- 
ment which he should make with the Count of La 
Marche and with the Breton barons. He surren- 
dered three strongholds for a term of years, and 
promised to go on a crusade as soon as his regency 
was discharged. Having thus renewed his allegiance 
to France he sent a message renouncing that of 
England ; whereupon his earldom of Richmond was 
confiscated. In revenge he equipped vessels to 
plunder the English merchants; a proceeding which 
gave great annoyance to that nation, who called him 
no longer a noble Count but a villainous pirate. 

Such was the end of Peter's career of active re- 
bellion. In the beginning of this year Philip of 

Boulogne had died. He was said to have . ^ 

AD 
been poison ed by^jthe^..Count^jof_Champagne ; 

with no other proof, it seems, than that they 
were enemies. His widow and child with their pos- 
sessions passed into royal ward. Count Robert of 
Dreux and the Archbishop of Lyons died about the 
same time. The decease of all three was very ad- 1 
vantageous to Theobald, inasmuch as they hated 
him, and had been among the principal movers in 
sending for the Queen of Cyprus, who was now 
arrived in France to push her claims. A few months 
later died Sancho, King of Navarre : Theobald was 
his sister's son and heir to that little crown, which 
he went to assume in May, leaving Champagne in 
the King's care. His chief remaining enemy, the 
Duke of Burgundy, threatened an attack; but in 
face of a royal injunction thought better of it, and 
gave securities for good behaviour. The Queen of 



70 Saint Louis [1231- 

Cyprus, having lost those on whose support she had 
most reckoned and having little reason to expect 
favour from either King or Pope, the two judges on 
whom her suit must depend, thought it wise to 
make a compromise with her cousin. This was 
arranged in the autumn by the King's mediation. 
Alix renounced her pretensions to Champagne and 
its dependencies, and was assigned in exchange an 
annual rent of two thousand pounds, and in addition 
forty thousand pounds down. To raise the money 
Theobald sold to the King for the same amount the 
suzerainty over the counties of Blois, Chartres, and 
Sancerre, and the viscounty of Chateaudun. The 
transaction appeared very profitable to the Crown; 
and was, no doubt, an essential part of the settle- 
ment with Alix, rather than a necessary expedient ; 
especially as the treasury of Navarre was reputed to 
contain riches far exceeding the required sum. A 
third of the dominions of Champagne thus passed to 
the King as direct fiefs, with all rights of homage, 
wardship, and reversion ; a considerable acquisition, 
and deserving comparison with those of the two 
former reigns. 

The monarchy was beginning to ride high above 
its troubles. Much had been done by arms; but 
more by patience. The young King had seen too 
much war from his childhood not to appreciate 
highly the blessings of peace. The horrid ravages 
which in that age were the inseparable incidents, 
and indeed the chief part, of military operations, 
had been almost continually before his eyes: the 
sack of towns and castles; the burning of farms; 



1236] The Period of Peace 71 

the plunder of private goods; the destruction of 
crops and fruit trees; the universal devastation, 
which caused a chronicler to cry out that it seemed 
as if Satan had been let loose to exercise his malice 
on the realm. The repetition of such scenes could 
not but impress on a mind naturally beneficent the 
evils of internecine strife among Christian men. In 
war of this kind there was little of the glamour of 
military success which human nature, especially 
among the French, finds so powerfully seductive. 
No applause of crowded cities lifted the victor, re- 
turning from distant fields, almost to the threshold 
of divinity. Battle was the business of daily life: 
not a sport, as afterwards it became ; or a rare and 
heroic duty, as now. It lay at each man's door; 
each man took his share, finding just so much 
pleasure as a workman has in his work, and mostly 
regarding the issue of gain and loss more than the 
manner of achievement. The successful soldier was 
reckoned and valued as we value a man skilful or 
fortunate in his affairs, and no more. It was not 
in civil or in European war that glory was to be 
gained, but on Eastern fields, against the enemies 
of God. 

This way of feeling, which was the natural out- 
come of the circumstances of the early Middle Ages, 
was fostered and nourished by the Church. Pope 
Gregory IX. was constantly exhorting the King and 
magnates of France and the King of England, by 
letters and by delegated prelates, and urging upon 
them the reconcilement of their quarrels, both as a 
Christian duty, and in order to allow some great 



72 Saint Louis [1231- 

effort to be made for the restoration of the fallen 
cause in Palestine. An earnest appeal to Louis is 
dated November, 1234. 

" How great," the Pope writes, " is the disgrace of 
Christendom ! How great the scandal to us all ! Who 
is so hard of heart and so fro ward of spirit as not to 
weep and cry aloud, when he hears in these days the 
lamentation of the prophet renewed — ' God, the heathen 
have come into Thine inheritance ; they have despised 
Thy holy temple ' ? Did not your father, of glorious 
memory, end his days in defending the Catholic Faith ? 
We beg and charge and straitly exhort, and enjoin you 
for the forgiveness of your sins, and adjure you by the 
Father and Son and Holy Ghost, and by the shedding 
of the blood of Jesus Christ, to gird yourself up well 
and manfully to avenge the injuries of our Lord, so that 
by you or yours help may be given with a great heart to 
His holy land. That this may not be hindered, make 
peace in your kingdom, most Christian King, and peace 
with England." 

It has been mentioned already that in order to 
assist and complete the purging out of long-seated 
heresy an Inquisition was set up at Toulouse. This 
institution was in the hands of the Jacobin friars, 
whose ardent and irregular zeal made them odious 
to the inhabitants, and troublesome even to the pre- 
lates who received successively from the Pope the 
charge of re-establishing the Church in those parts. 
It was not to be expected that Count Raymond or 
the greater part of his subjects would aid that work 
with any enthusiasm ; and endless complaints were 



1236] The Period of Peace 73 

carried to Rome of his slackness and bad faith in 
carrying out the terms he had accepted at Meaux. 
On his side he had much to say of the severity of 
the Inquisitors; and something of their doubtful 
honesty. It was alleged that the infant terrors of 
the tribunal were used to condemn the innocent on 
a private grudge, and even to extort money. The 
Pope, as was natural, inclined to listen to the ec- 
clesiastics; but the King's intercession was fre- 
quently used in behalf of the Count. He was 
accused at Rome of vexing and hindering the Church 
in Languedoc through his officers, and of compel- 
ling aggrieved clergy to plead their case before the 
royal courts instead of their own. It is certain that 
his mediation greatly softened the Pope's rigour 
towards Raymond, and even procured the restora- 
tion of some part of the territories which had been 
declared forfeit to the Church. 

But the quarrel of the people of Toulouse with 
the Inquisitors was not abated. It went from one 
violence to another, till, in 1235, the consuls of the 
town, supported by the Count, forbade anyone to 
speak to the friars, or to give them food or water 
or alms, and at last expelled them by force. The 
Pope wrote angrily, threatening punishment; but 
the King interceded again, and the honours rested 
with Raymond, who still delayed to start on his 
pilgrimage and did not even pay the wages of the 
professors whom the treaty bound him to support. 
His contumacy brought him no harm in the end ; 
for the papal policy was unwilling to offend the 
King by insistence; and, besides, the clerical cause 



74 Saint Louis [1231- 

was in bad odour through France at this time owing 
to recrudescence of the strife about jurisdiction. 
Accordingly the restoration of the Inquisition was 
evaded, except in a modified form ; and then its 
powers were suspended from operation. After three 
years and much negotiation, Raymond was released 
in part from his vow of crusade, and obtained formal 
absolution for all his offences. 

The claims of the clergy to be treated like a priv- 
ileged caste were rejected by the magnates no less 
than by the royal government. The main quarrel 
rose from their contention to refer all cases in which 
they were concerned to the sole decision of ecclesias- 
tical courts, even when the case was civil and they 
were concerned not as priests but as feoffees of land. 
It was aggravated by their habit of launching inter- 
dict and excommunication against all with whom 
they had any dispute on matters of property, fit to 
be settled by civil law. This abuse of the spiritual 
armoury in pursuit of openly temporal ends was 
naturally shocking to laymen ; the more so as it put 
them in a position of immediate and constant inferi- 
ority, whenever their interests ran counter to those of 
a cleric. A council of magnates and barons met on 
this subject at Saint Denis in the autumn of 1235, 
the King being present. The Duke of Burgundy 
was there, and the Counts of Brittany, La Marche, 
Ponthieu, and Saint Paul; the Lords Archam- 
baud of Bourbon and Bouchard of Montmorency, 
and many others. They addressed a general re- 
monstrance to the Pope on the conduct of the pre- 
lates, especially of the Archbishop of Rheims and 



1236] The Period of Peace 75 

his suffragans, who still sustained Godfrey, the new 
Bishop of Beauvais, in the quarrel bequeathed by 
his predecessor. The Archbishop of Tours also, 
they complained, had forbidden his abbots and priors 
to answer before their feudal suzerains in matters 
concerning their fiefs; and the clergy everywhere 
were setting up new claims to the prejudice of King 
and barons. They begged the Pope to confirm 
them in the rights which they had always enjoyed, 
as they on their side were willing that the Church 
should preserve its ancient privileges; and declared 
that if the present disorder continued, they and the 
King would take measures to end it. The protest 
was followed by a decree to which all agreed, to the 
effect that their vassals should not be obliged to 
plead before ecclesiastical courts on civil matters; 
that if they were excommunicated for refusing, the 
goods and lands of the clergy should be seized till 
they took off the excommunication ; that ecclesias- 
tical persons should be obliged to plead before lay 
tribunals in respect of their fiefs, but not in respect 
of their persons. 

These demands, though not immoderate, pro- 
voked the Pope, who wrote in a bitter strain to 
Louis, to the King of Navarre, and to the barons, 
complaining of the decree, urging them to revoke 
it, and bringing to their notice the general excom- 
munication pronounced by Pope Honorius III. 
against those who made any decree adverse to the 
liberties of the Church. Neither his prayers nor 
his threats were effective. It is true that the clerics 
continued to assert their claims; but the seizure of 



76 Saint Lo2tis [1231- 

goods, which was relentlessly enforced, proved more 
than a match for their thunder; especially as the 
Pope, in his present difficulties with the Emperor, 
could not afford to go all lengths in quarrelling with 
France, 

The King, however, was far from desiring to op- 
press the clergy, being naturally inclined in their 
favour, though he would not tolerate their encroach- 
ments. He insisted that they should be subject in 
civil matters to the civil courts; but there was no 
danger, as far as he was concerned, that they would 
not find there an impartial and even a benign judge. 
This appeared in the affair of the Archbishop of 
Rheims, which occurred a little before the assembly 
at Saint Denis, and was partly the occasion of it. 
The high-stomached prelate, having some dispute 
with the citizens, whose lord he was, excommuni- 
cated them all, and, as they did not submit, appealed 
to the King. The King would have made inquiry: 
but the Archbishop refused indignantly to enter into 
the merits of the case. He held it sufficient that 
his adversaries were excommunicate; they should 
be treated as already condemned ; the secular power 
was called in to punish, not to judge. Apart from 
the competence of royal jurisdiction, which he de- 
nied, it was impossible for him, he said, to plead 
against the townsfolk, or to answer the counter- 
charges of homicide and other matters which they 
brought : for they were outcast from the Church 
through his censure, and by the law of the Church 
he could have no dealing or communion with such. 

This method of reasoning did not approve itself 



1236] The Period of Peace yy 

to Louis, who refused to act without a previous 
inquiry. The Archbishop then called a provincial 
council, which deputed seven bishops to the King 
desiring him to do summary justice on Rheims. 
Their request being rejected, in November they 
held another council and put an interdict on their 
dioceses. The Pope confirmed it ; as he did the 
excommunication of the citizens, adding that their 
debtors should be released from payment. But 
such sentences did not restore Rheims to the Arch- 
bishop. He had no strength to coerce the town, 
which imprisoned his officers. So he made a virtue 
of necessity, and submitted his case to the royal 
judgment. Both sides pleaded, and the decision 
went for the prelate at nearly every point in the dis- 
pute. The King sent two commissioners to Rheims 
to carry out the judgment, and to determine matters 
which remained in doubt. They ordered the citi- 
zens to pay the Archbishop a fine of ten thousand 
pounds, and to get themselves absolved and restored 
to communion. 

Shortly after this the peace was again threatened 
by the King of Navarre. He was somewhat lifted 
above himself, perhaps, by his late accession of 
dignity and wealth : certainly he regretted the fair 
provinces given up to the King, and desired their 
recovery : and the personal tie of loyalty and friend- 
ship, which had bound him so close to the cause 
of the Regent, weakened a little when she no longer 
appeared ostensibly at the head of affairs. He was 
the instrument and public actor; but the intrigue 
was hatched and nursed by the Count of La Marche 



78 Saint Louis [1231- 

and his ambitious wife. They revived the old pro- 
ject of alliance with Brittany, arranging that Theo- 
bald's daughter Blanche should marry the young 
. j^ Duke John. He fell in with the plan, and 

' / the marriage was hurriedly contracted, many 
great barons consenting and assisting. This 
was in breach of a solemn agreement made by 
Theobald with the King, not to marry his daughter 
without permission, under forfeit of three castles. 
In addition, the union with a newly reconciled rebel, 
in itself and by the circumstances of its making, was 
an unfriendly act. When the forfeit was required, 
Theobald, instead of fulfilling his pledge, made a 
treaty of mutual defence with the Count of La 
Marche, the complicity of Count Peter of Brittany 
being affirmed in the document, and began to 
gather men, fortify towns, and put himself in a 
posture of war. 

On the other side a strong army was promptly 
assembled at Vincennes. But before it came to 
fighting, the Regent was negotiating, helped by 
many common friends who were grieved at the 
prospect of a new and disastrous strife. They urged 
upon Theobald the hopelessness of resistance, since 
he was far inferior in force and must be overwhelmed 
before his allies could assist ; and encouraged him 
to desist from his rash enterprise and submit, throw- 
ing himself on the King's mercy and trusting to his 
former services and to his friendship with the Queen- 
mother. The same arguments were pressed by his 
own friends and councillors and carried the victory 
over his pride. He came to the royal camp 



12361 The Period of Peace 7g 

avowing his fault, offering to repair it, and seeking re- 
conciliation. His overtures were accepted ; but it is 
related that Blanche, on meeting him, reproached 
him for ingratitude to the King, who had saved him 
from his enemies so often. 

"Then the Count, " says the chronicler, "regarding 
the Queen, who was so wise and so beautiful, was 
abashed. ' By my faith. Madam,' said he, ' my heart 
and my body, and all my land is at your order. There 
is nothing that could please you that I would not do 
willingly, and if God pleases, never will I go against you 
and yours.' " 

By the conditions of peace he promised to sur- 
render three strong places, and to stay seven years 
either beyond seas on the crusade to which . _ 
he was already pledged, or in his kingdom ' j 
of Navarre. He remained a little time 
longer at the Court ; but his position was not toler- 
able. For he had many enemies there, who took 
every opportunity of casting in his teeth the old 
slanders of poisoning the late King and the Count 
of Boulogne. And the King's brother, Robert, 
Count of Artois, a hot and impetuous youth, held 
him in hatred for his recent behaviour, and vented 
his spite in all manner of slights and personal annoy- 
ance. Once a soft cheese was thrown in Theobald's 
face as he entered a room ; and once the tail of his 
palfrey was cut by Robert's followers; and once 
they pelted him. When this came to the King he 
imprisoned the culprits and ordered them to be 
hanged. Then Robert came and declared that 



8o Saint Louis [1231-1236] 

everything had been done by his command, and so 
obtained their release. Theobald, not desiring to 
press the quarrel, took the other course of with- 
drawing to Navarre. At the King's order, the 
Count of Brittany and a numerous escort of barons 
attended him as far as Nantes, whence he took ship. 
He consoled himself in retreat with music and 
poetry. 

" And since much thought engenders melancholy, he 
was advised by wise and prudent men," says the chron- 
icler, " to study the sweet sounds of the viol, and pleasant 
delectable songs. So were made between him and Gace 
Brule the finest and most delightful and melodious ditties 
that ever were heard, both for voice and for viol. And 
he had them written up in the hall of his house at Pro- 
vins, and in that of his house at Troyes." 

Thus this affair was settled. Theobald's repent- 
ance gave his promised allies no time to commit 
themselves to any overt act ; and the quiet of the 
realm was kept undisturbed. 





HENRY, COUNT OF BAR 



AMAURY DE MONTFORT 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PERIOD OF PEACE {Continued) 

1236-1241 

AS Louis reached his majority and began to take 
greater hold of the direction of affairs, it 
seemed that a milder and more equable 
spirit was gradually infused into the royal rule. 
Some part of the change must be attributed to the 
changed circumstances of the time. After the 
course of ten rough and hazardous years the pro- 
spect cleared and the ways ran smooth. The remain- 
ing diseases and disorders of the kingdom required 
emollients rather than cautery. The stern and 
rigorous character of government, which watches 
every advantage and presses every opportunity, was 
less suitable to a state of security than to the former 
perils; and the obedience and respect of subjects 
having been gained, it was time to manage and 
humour their affections. By good fortune the 
young King's disposition ran in the suitable groove, 
being less severe, assertive, and imperious than that 
of his mother. She still by experience and author- 
ity had the most considered voice in France; and 

81 



82 Saint Louis [1236- 

the principles of conduct and policy in domestic 
and foreign business remained hers. But they were 
tempered somewhat in application to particulars by 
the King's gentler soul and more scrupulous con- 
science ; which, without falling into mischievous 
excesses of good-nature, induced him to careful 
consideration of other persons' rights and to a 
greater compliance with their weakness or neces- 
sities. 

Louis in this early period already promised the 
rare qualities which made him later on the judge 
and mediator not only of his own kingdom, but of 
Europe. When a question arose with the Countess 
of Flanders, who had married a new husband after 
Ferrand's death, about the conditions of his invest- 
iture, the King did not insist on judging the matter 
as suzerain in his own court, but referred it to the 
decision of three bishops. He was the successful 
mediator between factions of the citizens of Nar- 
bonne, who were battering down one another's 
houses with rams; and again in a private 
/ sedition at Orleans. In that place, where a 
number of students had settled and re- 
mained since the disturbance of the University of 
Paris, the town rose on the gown, and slew many 
scholars in the riot. It happened that among the 
dead were a nephew of the King of Navarre and 
another of the Count of La Marche, a young cousin 
of the Count of Brittany, and a kinsman of Ar- 
chambaud of Bourbon. These great persons rode 
into Orleans with their horsemen and put the citi- 
zens to the sword. The trouble would have 




SEAL OF SAINT LOUIS. 



12411 The Period of Peace 83 

inflamed and spread had not the King settled it. 
He intervened also in a war on his borders between 
the Bishop of Liege and the Duke of Limbourg, 
who had built a castle on the Meuse from which he 
harried the bishopric. The parties allowed him to 
arbitrate and accepted his decision. 

As regarded his great neighbours abroad, the 
King's policy rested on the lines which the Regent 
had shaped : to keep the English from gaining any 
further footing in France; and to remain friends 
with the Emperor, but holding a level balance be- 
tween him and the Pope. It is said that the con- 
science of Louis troubled him now, as certainly it 
did at a later time, about the justice of the conquests 
made by his father and grandfather. Such scruples 
were common to princes of that age in times of sick- 
ness and adversity : the late King had avowed them 
on his death-bed; but Louis was singular in feeling 
them on other occasions. He did not, however, at 
present try to satisfy them, distasteful as they were 
to his mother and councillors, who alleged on the 
other side many arguments of good sense and 
expedience. 

In 1235, Henry of England had negotiated a 
marriage for himself with the daughter of Simon, 
Count of Ponthieu. This alliance would have es- 
tablished him on the borders of Normandy, op- 
posite his own coasts. Accordingly the Count of 
Ponthieu was given the choice of breaking it off, or 
of being driven from his possessions for marrying 
his daughter to the King's enemy. He chose the 
first alternative; and Henry, disappointed of the 



84 Saint Louis [1236- 

match, obtained another in Eleanor of Provence, 
Queen Margaret's next sister, a marriage not in- 
jurious and indeed welcome to France. The prin- 
cess was splendidly received on her passage through 
her brother-in-law's kingdom, and escorted by him 
and both Queens as far as the sea. Though there 
was no peace with England hostilities remained in 
suspense, the existing truce being prolonged in 1238 
for a further period. 

The Emperor Frederick 11. had been befriended 
by the last two Kings of France; and the Regent 
had been careful to cherish a connection which was 
founded on the mutual interest of both parties. For 
the Emperor needed the support or at any rate the 
neutrality of European monarchs, and especially of 
the French, in his strife with the Papacy, which 
never ceased to smoulder and was now about to 
burst into its grand final conflagration; while his 
friendship was not less desirable to the King, seeing 
that it went far to secure the eastern borders, and 
to check the party among German princes which, 
being allied from of old with the English House, 
was therefore disposed to be troublesome to France. 
The good relations seemed to be threatened in 1235, 
when Frederick took the Princess Isabel of England 
for his third wife. He made his excuses to Louis, 
writing that the Pope had pressed him to the mar- 
riage and overruled the scruples which he himself 
felt on account of the French alliance : he professed 
that his hereditary love to France was unchanged, 
and invited the King to confirm it by a visit. 
Nevertheless he promised help to his brother-in-law 



12411 The Period of Peace 85 

in recovering his continental possessions; without 
ever giving or perhaps intending to give it. His 
interest was plain against a quarrel with Louis, and 
had it been otherwise, his hands were soon full of 
other affairs. But a just suspicion of his versatile 
and dangerous policy threw some shadow for a time 
over their intercourse. When the Emperor sum- 
moned the princes of Christendom to meet him at 
Vaucouleurs in Lorraine on Saint John Baptist's 
Day, 1237, for conference about matters of common 
interest, the King accepted the invitation, but, not 
trusting the purposes of his host, prepared to go 
with a retinue of knights amounting to the numbers 
of an army. Either the news of this or some other 
reason caused Frederick to postpone the convention. 
Pope and Emperor came to an open rupture in 
1239, and made a great scandal in the world. Each 
party sent circular letters through Christendom, 
exculpating himself and accusing the other with 
long and violent invective. Their eloquence did 
not lack material. The Emperor's known freedom 
of thought and love of science, then counted magic, 
his Oriental looseness of life, and his unscrupulous 
policy, coloured the charges of heresy, blasphemy, 
immorality, and treachery, to which was added per- 
secution of the Church. On the other hand, the 
excesses of the Italian adherents and mercenaries of 
the Holy Father, his intrigues among the subjects 
of the Empire, and the shifts by which he was forced 
to raise money for the war, afforded no edifying 
spectacle to Europe, and gave ground to the Em- 
peror for reproaches of simony, sedition, cruelty. 



86 Saint Louis 



[1236- 



avarice, and ingratitude, with which he seasoned 
his main argument, that he was fighting the battle 
of all temporal princes against the encroachment 
and aggression of the Roman See, 

The Pope hurled solemn anathema against Fred- 
erick, declaring his subjects released from their oaths 
and bound to refuse obedience. He sent legates 
into France, England, and Germany, to see that the 
sentence was published in all the churches, every 
Sunday and Saint's day, with beaten bells and 
lighted candles ; and to exact from the clergy a tax 
of a fifth of their revenues for the support of the 
papal cause. They were allowed to carry out their 
commission in France, and also in England, though 
Henry was the Emperor's brother-in-law. But 
Louis sent an embassy to Rome to arrange a recon- 
ciliation if he could : the English King joined his 
good ofifices, and matters seemed in train. It was 
reported at one time that the Pope was holding 
out, having heard that his legates had reaped a rich 
harvest; whereupon Louis ordered that the moneys 
collected from the clergy should not be taken out 
of the kingdom, till a settlement was reached. But 
no acceptable terms could be found : and the un- 
happy quarrel took its course. 

Gregory, who claimed to have deposed the Em- 
peror, was anxious to procure a rival; a method 
often used by his predecessors. Failing to tempt 
the German princes with the dangerous honour, he 
offered the Imperial crown to the Count of Artois. 
The offer was considered in the French Council, 
which advised its rejection. The barons were 



1241] The Period of Peace 87 

outraged and affronted by the arrogant pretension of 
temporal supremacy, and expressed their resentment 
in a plain answer to the papal envoys. 

" How does the Pope dare," they asked, " to disin- 
herit the Emperor, who has no superior nor equal among 
Christian princes, before he has confessed or been con- 
victed of any crime ? For as regards that which is 
charged against him, we do not accept the judgment of 
his enemies, of whom the Pope is known to be chief. 
He has been blameless towards us and our good neigh- 
bour, and has kept word and bond; nor have we seen 
aught amiss in him towards the Catholic Faith. We 
know that he has fought truly for the Lord Christ, boldly 
encountering the perils of seafaring and battle: so much 
religion we have not yet found in the Pope. Rome cares 
nothing for the spilling of our blood, while we wreak her 
grudges. After destroying the Emperor she will tread 
under foot all the kings of the earth, lifting the horn of 
pride and arrogance." 

They were concerned, however, by the accusation 
of heresy made against Frederick ; and declared they 
would send a special embassy to inquire into and 
reassure them on this point. 

" If we find nothing unsound, why should we make him 
our enemy ? But if otherwise, yea, if any man, even 
the Pope himself, thinks evil against God, we will pursue 
him to destruction." 

Envoys were sent to Frederick accordingly; and 
were satisfied with his profession of orthodoxy. 



88 Saint Louis [1236- 

" I believe as a Christian," he told them, " whatever 
my enemy may say who thirsts after my blood and the 
overthrow of my honour: but the Pope has favoured my 
rebels against me, especially the Milanese, who are 
heretics." 

But as the King repelled the Pope, when he 
stepped beyond his province, and in endeavouring 
to destroy the Emperor seemed to derogate from all 
temporal sovereignty ; so he w^as equally ready in 
asserting his neutrality against the other side; and 
forced Frederick so to conduct the quarrel as not to 
disturb other countries or infringe the liberties of 
the Church outside his own dominions. In Italy 
and Germany he would not interfere : that was the 
domestic battle-field of the combatants. But he 
made it his care as far as possible to prevent the 
scandalous struggle from overflowing those bounds 
and encroaching on fields where his native interests 
might be involved and overwhelmed in the waves of 
discord. 

The Count of Provence having espoused the papal 
party was attacked by his neighbour and old enemy, 
Raymond of Toulouse, instigated by the Emperor. 
Raymond obtained some success of arms, and took 
the opportunity to recapture his surrendered castles 
across the Rhone; the French knights, who held 
them, giving him sufficient pretext by riding to help 
the father of their Queen. Louis was angry at the 
news, blaming the Emperor. He sent a reinforce- 
ment of seven hundred horse to Provence, and 
gathered a larger army. But not wishing to be 



1241] The Pei'iod of Peace 89 

hasty, he first inquired of Frederick whether he 
took this quarrel on himself. The Emperor pro- 
tested with many excuses that he had neither in- 
tended nor desired injury to France; and that the 
Frenchmen themselves had begun, by making war 
on Toulouse in aid of Provence : it was not surprising 
that retaliation had followed. He suggested that 
both sides should restore their captures and make 
compensation for the mischief done: " in order that 
the seeds of hatred sown by the enemy of mankind 
may sprout no further, and our foes may not rejoice 
over our confusion." His amicable professions led 
to a peaceful settlement. 

The Pope summoned a general Council to meet in 
Italy in 1241 to consider the dispute with the Em- 
pire. Frederick had good reason to expect that 
such an assembly would be the ready instrument of 
his adversary, to register sentence in a prejudged 
case, and lend to papal condemnation the apparent 
weight and sanction of the universal Church. He 
declared himself resolved to hinder the Council. 
Nevertheless, by the efforts of the Cardinal-Legates 
in France and England a great concourse of prelates 
was gathered at Genoa in the spring ; among them 
the Archbishops of Rouen, Aries, Bordeaux, and 
Besangon, the Bishops of Nismes and Puy, the 
Abbots of Cluny and Cisteaux and Fescamp. Their 
way on land was beset by the Imperial troops : Fred- 
erick offered them safe-conduct, desiring to lay his 
own case before them; but they refused, preferring 
to trust the waves and the convoy of the Genoese, 
who held themselves masters of those seas. An 



90 Saint Louis [1236- 

Imperial fleet engaged them on the passage, sank 
three galleys and captured the rest, two-and-twenty 
in number, with three legates and over a hundred 
archbishops, bishops, and abbots on board. The 
prize was carried into Naples, where the prelates 
were kept in prison. The Emperor wrote to the 
princes of Europe, announcing the capture, and in- 
viting them to rejoice with him over this signal blow 
given to the assault on the common privileges of 
kings. 

Louis, however, was not inclined to see the pre- 
lates of his realm seized and Imprisoned for attending 
a Council to which they had been lawfully summoned 
by the highest authority of the Church. He asked 
their release ; and not obtaining it, wrote again in a 
. P^ higher tone. After recalling to the Emperor 

,L.^ the ancestral friendship of their houses and 
1242 . ^ 

his own refusal to help the papal faction, he 

expressed surprise at the imprisonment of the French 

bishops, who were not implicated with the Pope and 

had done nothing but their duty. Their detention, 

he said, was injurious and dishonourable to himself. 

" Let the Imperial wisdom weigh carefully what we 
write," the despatch concludes, " and not regard merely 
its own power and desire; for the kingdom of France is 
not so weak that it will let itself be ridden with spurs." 

Frederick gave way to the menace, and set his 
prisoners at large. 

Two great wounds were inflicted on the common- 
weal of Christendom, thus disordered and inflamed 
in its chief members, by the defeat of the crusaders 



1241] The Period of Peace 91 

in' Syria, and the irruption of the Tartars into Hun- 
gary. In the course of the late civil wars many 
magnates and barons of France had undertaken the 
passage into Palestine. To do so was a frequent 
condition of peace, partly intended to occupy ad- 
venturous spirits and be a security against trouble at 
home. Others joined from devotion, or love of glory. 
The enterprise was long delayed: first by the un- 
settled state of the kingdom; then by the great 
preparations needful for a distant expedition; and 
by the discouragements offered by Pope and Em- 
peror. Both of them professed indeed, as they were 
bound, general approval and patronage of the crusade 
and zealous desire to assist it ; but both thought first 
of their own affairs, and required or urged postpone- 
ment from time to time, as it served some particular 
end of policy. 

A start was made at last in 1239. The crusaders 
gathered at Lyons. The King of Navarre was there, 
and Count Peter, having handed over Brittany to 
his son, now of age; Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, 
Amaury of Montfort, the Counts of Macon and 
Bar and Nevers, and great part of the baronage of 
France; some English also were with them. Louis 
had been active in forwarding the expedition. He 
provided equipment and money for many poor 
knights, who desired to join in the passage but had 
not the means to fit themselves out ; he sent Amaury 
of Montfort, who was an experienced captain and 
Constable of France, assigning him a daily sum for 
his expenses; he undertook to guard the castles of 
the barons till their return. The Count of Macon 



92 Saint Loitis [1236- 

pledged his lands to the King for ten thousand 
pounds and a thousand a year. As he died in 
Palestine and his widow and heirs confirmed the 
cession, the county reverted to the Crown. 

Most of the crusaders passed down the Rhone 
and sailed from Marseilles; others went by way of 
Brindisi. They landed at Acre, fifteen hundred 
knights and forty thousand mounted men. The 
occasion was favourable to their arms, from the 
disputes of the Saracen rulers. But they were 
ruined by the same disunion which had attended 
their rebellions at home. The King of Navarre 
was named leader on account of his rank, though 
most would have preferred the Duke of Burgundy. 
They acted without a common plan. Peter of Brit- 
tany began to plunder on his own account, and 
made a fortunate foray to the north, in which he 
gathered great booty. This raised the envy of the 
Duke of Burgundy and other princes; who, think- 
ing to imitate his success, undertook a similar raid 
themselves, unknown to him or to the King of Na- 
varre. But the Saracen horsemen surprised them in 
the sands near Gaza at the end of a long night 
march. The weary and floundering troops of the 
Christians were shamefully defeated. The Count 
of Bar and the lord of Clermont were killed, with 
many others; the Duke of Burgundy fled; Amaury 
of Montfort was taken and sent in captivity to 
Egypt. 

This reverse destroyed the courage of the crusad- 
ers, who attempted no further offensive operations. 
Their feeble and divided state was only saved by 



1241] The Period of Peace 93 

the greater discords of the Infidel. By aid of the 
Templars the King of Navarre and the Count of 
Brittany were able to patch up a truce with the 
Sultan of Damascus, and returned to France a year 
after their departure without waiting to see it carried 
out. Their hopes were so low that they did not 
stay for the arrival of Richard of Cornwall, who had 
already started with an English force, being splen- 
didly entertained by the King in his passage through 
France. He reached Acre fifteen days after they 
left, and was joined by the Duke of Burgundy and 
those of the French who remained. On the advice 
of the Hospitallers, who always ran contrary to the 
Templars, he abandoned the truce with Damascus 
and made another with the Sultan of Egypt, who 
was the main head of Saracen power; thus procuring 
the release of the French captives, and a nominal 
surrender of Jerusalem itself and many other places 
in the Holy Land. He fortified Ascalon, and 
buried the bones of the dead on the field of Gaza, 
endowing a priest to say masses for their souls. 
Then he came home, leaving the Christians of Pales- 
tine in their former precarious state, chiefly main- 
tained by the strength of th^military orders of the 
Temple and the Hospital, which one or the other 
Sultan found useful in the balance against his rival. 
The ill fortune 0f the crusaders was attributed by 
many to the internal dissensions of the Christian 
world. What blessing, or what human probability 
of success, it was asked, could be expected to follow 
an enterprise against the Infidels, when Pope and 
Emperor, who should be working together in the 



94 Saint Loiiis [1236- 

holy cause, were entirely occupied in pursuing a war 
of mutual destruction ? And men's thoughts were 
hardly recovered from this grievous course of reflec- 
tion, when they were turned again into the same 
channel by the growing rumours of a new danger. 

This was the advance of the Tartars : a horde of 
migratory horsemen, flowing out of the vast and 
silent recesses of Asia, like some sudden, unex- 
plained plague of nature, on the haunts of civilised 
men. It was the blind surge of a moving nation, 
unknown and terrible, spreading to its limits in 
irresistible flood. First they overran Asia Minor, 
sacking the rich sultanate of Iconium. The Sara- 
cens of those parts, forgetting their enmity with the 
Christians in presence of so strange and barbarous 
. _ foes, sent an embassy to France and Eng- 
* o' land, asking for aid to stem the torrent 

which threatened to overwhelm the whole 
world. But the danger was too far, and the hatred 
of Infidels too strong, for their prayers and argu- 
ments to be effective. The common feeling was 
expressed by the Bishop of Winchester in England, 
who said that the dogs should be let devour one 
another; then the remnant of them could be cleaned 
off the earth, and all men be brought into the Catho- 
lic Church. 

In three years' time, however, the peril was press- 
ing on Europe. The Tartars did not go southward, 
. _ but streamed round the coast of the Black 

Sea into Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia. 

Terrifying tales of their appearance, num- 
bers, and ferocity reached the West. They were 



1241] The Period of Peace 95 

little men with great heads, thick necks and bodies, 
long arms, and legs little and feeble ; of wonderful 
courage and endurance; riding on strong horses. 
Their aspect was savage, their cries horrible ; they 
were clothed in skins, and armed with iron knives 
and bows, being very skilful archers. They ate no 
corn ; but fed on the flesh of cattle, horses, or men, 
which they carried in dried strips; their drink was 
fermented milk or blood. Thus provisioned they 
moved great distances with incredible speed, fodder- 
ing their horses on leaves and roots when grass 
failed, and crossing rivers and marshes by help of 
inflated hides. The women fought like the men, 
following the host in waggons, which carried all 
their goods. They neither took nor gave quarter; 
and did not spare man, woman, or child. They 
were believed to worship their swords and to be 
without laws or government; but little could be 
learned on this head, since they refused to speak or 
to eat if captured, and were obstinate under what- 
ever torture. 

Such were the enemies who threatened Christen- 
dom. They defeated the Hungarians, and so wasted 
the whole country that men returning after they 
had passed found no food but dead bodies. Their 
ravages went farther west ; and the fear of them 
prevented the men of Friesland from coming to 
England for the herring fishery. The Duke of Lor- 
raine wrote that they had entered Poland and were 
likely to destroy the churches and peoples of North 
Germany. Men's uneasy minds believed them a 
scourge sent by the judgment of God and predicted 



96 - Saint Louis [1236- 

in the Revelation. It was said that their Khan 
had inquired of his idols, and been told to advance 
boldly, since three spirits had been sent before his 
face to confound his adversaries: the spirits of dis- 
cord and unbelief and fear. The relation shows 
to what pitch of despair and conscious weakness 
Europe was reduced. Fasts and prayers were or- 
dered in the churches for the appeasement of the 
quarrel between Pope and Emperor, and for the 
overthrow of the Tartars. 

France was infected with the general dread of 
this calamity ; but the King is related to have dis- 
cussed it calmly and cheerfully, saying that, if the 
Tartars came, there was this comfort : to meet 
them, and either drive them back, or else earn a 
martyr's crown by dying in battle for the Christian 
faith. The opportunity, however, did not arrive. 
The invading tide, having reached its flood, began 
to ebb. The Emperor, though complaining that 
his arms were hampered by the unnatural hostility 
of Rome, contrived to send great succours into 
Hungary; by which assistance the Tartars were 
defeated in a bloody battle on the banks of the 
Danube; and on this account, or, more probably, 
because of the death of their great Khan, they 
retreated soon afterwards. 

It has been said above that certain Mohammedan 
princes sent an embassy to France to ask assistance. 
One of these was the notorious Old Man of the 
Mountain, who had entered into relations with 
Louis the year before in a very curious manner. 
This singular sovereign ruled a tribe, or rather a 



7241] The Period of Peace gy 

fanatic sect, called Assassins, whose name has be- 
come a word of reproach. They inhabited the 
mountains of Southern Syria; and though con- 
temptible in numbers, made their chief formidable 
by the extraordinary habit of absolute obedience in 
which they were trained. They were like human 
weapons in his hand ; every command he gave was 
carried out blindly by his individual subjects, 
though it involved immediate and certain destruc- 
tion to themselves; for they believed that dying 
thus they went straight to Paradise. He used this 
power, which put the lives of other sovereigns at 
his disposal, alike for purposes of piety and profit; 
despatching messengers of death to execute enemies 
of his religion; or levying blackmail on neighbour- 
ing potentates as the price of safety. The military • 
orders established in Palestine almost alone resisted 
his demands: for being corporations with elective 
heads, to whom a competent successor was easily 
provided, they despised his assassins, attacked him 
boldly, and reduced him to terms and the payment 
of tribute. 

Having heard that the King of France was a 
monarch of great Christian zeal, and about to take 
the cross, he sent two devotees to murder him. 
But, learning soon after from the Templars that he 
was mistaken ; that the King himself was not coming 
on the crusade ; and also that he had several brothers 
almost equal in age, he repented of the unprofitable 
design, and despatched two men more to stop its 
execution. The later envoys arrived in France first, 
and presented themselves to Louis with an account 



98 Saint Louis [1236- 

of the purpose of their journey. He was naturally- 
disturbed by thought of the daggers which might 
strike him at any moment unawares, and had him- 
self guarded wherever he went by men carrying 
copper maces. Meanwhile, by his leave and help, 
the Syrian envoys were searching for their com- 
patriots, and, not succeeding at Paris, went to Mar- 
seilles, where they found them. All four returned 
to the King, who, glad to have escaped the danger, 
and attributing the repentance of the Assassin prince 
to Divine interposition, and perhaps considering it 
wise to conciliate such an adversary, dismissed them 
with rich gifts for themselves and their master. 

The piety and zeal, which fame thus reported as 
far as Asia, were manifested in the usual ways of 
the time. Louis was assiduous in the exercises of 
religion. On his visits to Royaumont he lived and 
fared like the monks, observing the rule of silence, 
and restraining his younger brothers and courtiers, 
who sometimes accompanied him, from wandering 
about, playing, and conversing loudly, as is the man- 
ner of such persons in such places. Both he and 
his wife were constant alms-givers and feeders of the 
poor, and indeed liberal in any good cause. Louis 
was not a complacent and foolish spender : he 
squandered no treasure on favourites, and nourished 
no swarms of hungry Provencals and Savoyards, 
like his brother of England. The English nobles 
remarked the difference, drawing a bitter parallel 
against their own King. But his purse was always 
open to relieve a needy noble or poor scholar, or to 
give a dowry to the daughter of an impoverished 



1241] The Period of Peace 



99 



house. He helped with a large hand the begging 
Emperor of the East, Baldwin of the family of 
Courtenay, who came through Europe soliciting 
men and money to establish his tottering throne, 
and not only got great sums and many soldiers from 
the King of France, but having pledged to him the 
county of Namur for fifty thousand pounds, re- 
ceived it back without any payment. 

The hatred of heretics and Jews, as enemies of 
God, was a virtue highly esteemed by that age, 
though repugnant and hardly intelligible to this. 
Louis shared it with all pious persons and with most 
who were not, and was not backward in lending the 
secular arm to the Church for her task of chastising 
and rooting out errors thought damnable and de- 
structive of men's everlasting souls. The heresy 
called Paterine or Bulgarian, the tenets of which it 
is not needful to discuss, had gained a strong foot- 
ing about this time in Flanders and the northern 
parts of France. A certain Brother Robert, himself 
converted from the same error, received in the year 
1236 a commission from the Holy See to extirpate 
it; and was assisted by the King with the necessary 
men and money and commendation to the local 
authorities. He was a keen hunter of the game, 
and was called the Hammer of Heretics. Within a 
few months he seized fifty persons at Peronne, Cam- 
bray, and other places, convicted them before the 
episcopal courts, and burned or buried them alive. 
Many others recanted ; and these were shaved close 
and their garments marked with a cross before and 
behind. Sometimes they were shut up for a season 

LofC. 



lOO Saint Louis 



[1236- 



I to repent and meditate. It is related that both the 

/ King and the Queen-mother intervened on occasions 
to rescue victims from his fury. 

Brother Robert continued in his inquisition for 
several years ; but it appears that his sharp surgery 
had cut away the disease; for executions became 
rare. His greatest exploit, however, was in a new 
field, in 1239, when he burned over one hundred and 
eighty heretics at once at Mont -Vimer in Cham- 
pagne, in the presence of the King of Navarre and 
many bishops: " a mighty holocaust," writes a 
contemporary monk," and acceptable to the Lord." 
After this he was found to have abused his powers, 
and in his reckless and uncurbed zeal to have con- 
founded innocent with guilty. A papal letter sus- 
pended him from further exercise of his office; he 
was tried and condemned to perpetual imprison- 
ment. 

The Jews escaped more easily. The theory and 
practice of religious persecution, which Christianity 

I inherited from that people, and which it has often 
turned against them so terribly, bore lightly upon 
them in France in this reign. It was rather their 

/ usury that was reprobated and repre'ssed. That 
practice, it is true, and those who followed it, were 
more hated, by the King at any rate, as being 
offensive to God than as injurious to society. Or- 
dinances were made against Jewish usurers, which 
failed, as ever, to be effective. But they did not 
suffer in their persons except from the periodic 
violence of the populace: it is even recorded that 
in Poitou they received shelter from the mob in a 



1241] The Period of Peace loi 

royal castle. Their usurious and illegal gains were 
confiscated. Louis did not keep the confiscations 
for himself, though to do so was the habit of rulers 
of the time, and in part, it may be suspected, the 
motive of such legislation. He returned the money 
to the debtors from whom it had been extorted, as 
far as he could find them. The rest was given, by 
the Pope's advice, to the Emperor Baldwin. 

But if the King did not, like other princes, plun- 
der the Jews for his profit, he detested their sect no 
less, as is shown in his public burning of the Tal- 
mud. The step was recommended by the Univer- 
sity of Paris, which had examined the work and its 
commentaries upon an order from the Pope. The 
Archbishop of Sens, a man of great learning, at first 
dissuaded the King ; but he dying suddenly of a colic 
just a year after, this was considered to be 

a judgment of God, and Louis burned all 

. 1241 

copies of the Talmud he could lay hands on. 

His piety was active, though less invidiously, in 
the acquisition of relics of undoubted sanctity. 
Many such were still preserved among the treasures 
of Constantinople, and in the present distress of the 
Eastern Empire appeared richer assets than any 
masterpiece of ancient art. It was not thought 
seemly to make them objects of barter and sale. But 
the Emperor Baldwin, willing to reward and encour- 
age the King's generosity, presented to him a most 
precious and celebrated relic, the Crown of Thorns. 
The Venetians had it in pawn for ten thousand 
pounds, and the gift carried the necessity of redemp- 
tion. Two friars were sent to Constantinople for this 



I02 Saint Louis [1236- 

purpose, and to bring the Crown to France. The cir- 
cumstances of its arrival are fully related in a narra- 
tive drawn up by the King's own order. On having 
word of its approach — it was in August of the year 
1239 — he went out joyfully to meet it, accompanied 
by his mother and brothers, the Archbishop of Sens 
and other prelates, and as many barons and knights 
as could be gathered at sudden notice. They met 
the returning envoys about five miles beyond Sens, 
bearing a wooden chest. Opening it, they found a 
silver cofTer fastened with the seals of the magnates 
of the Eastern Empire and of the Doge of Venice. 
When these were broken a case of pure gold ap- 
peared within, containing the Holy Crown itself. 
All gathered round to see it, transported with devout 
fervours, as if they beheld the sacred Head of the 
Lord, that once had worn it. The boxes were then 
closed and made fast with the royal seal. Next 
day Sens was entered. The whole populace came 
to meet them rejoicing. The King and the Count 
of Artois walked barefoot, carrying the reliquary on 
their shoulders. They were surrounded by knights 
and nobles, also barefoot. The procession of people 
was headed by the clergy, carrying bones of the 
saints and other relics. The citizens displayed their 
richest treasures in the streets ; the whole town was 
full of lighted candles, and sounding with bells and 
organs and joyous voices of worship. The sacred 
Crown was borne into the church of Saint Stephen, 
and there uncovered before the people. Next day 
it was carried on towards Paris, attended by a tri- 
umphant concourse along the road. Coming to the 




RELIQUARY OF THE TRUE CROSS. 

KNOWN AS THE RELIQUARY OF BALDWIN. 



12411 The Period of Peace 103 

city on the eighth day at dawn, they were met by in- 
numerable crowds, and by clergy in copes and albs, 
bearing large waxen tapers. A great pulpit was 
erected on open ground outside the walls, from 
which the relic was displayed ; while prelates and 
clergy in their robes preached gratulatory sermons 
to devout multitudes. The procession was then re- 
sumed, and entered the city in the same order amid 
the same ceremonies and rejoicing as at Sens. It 
passed to the cathedral of Notre Dame, where a 
solemn service was held ; and thence to the Palace, 
to deposit the Crown in the chapel of Saint Nicholas, 
which was soon frequented by pilgrims from all 
parts of Christendom. 

Two years later, by a similar transaction, Louis 
acquired a portion of the True Cross, redeeming it 
from the Venetians, to whom Baldwin had pledged 
it for twenty-five thousand pounds. It is related 
that this relic, even more precious than the former, 
was received in Paris with no less state. The King 
with the two Queens and the Princes, the archbish- 
ops, bishops, abbots, and magnates of France, after 
displaying the Holy Wood to the populace from a 
platform outside the walls, as before, entered the 
city in procession. Louis himself, who had fasted for 
three days in preparation, carried the Cross, holding 
it aloft, his arms being supported when they became 
weary by the nobles who walked beside him. Then 
came the two Queens and the Princes, bearing the 
Crown of Thorns on a litter. All went barefoot and 
bareheaded and fasting. They followed the former 
order of going, first to Notre Dame, then to the 



104 Saint Louis ri236-l24l] 

Palace. "A more solemn or joyful sight," says the 
chronicler, " was never seen in the kingdom of 
France." 

In order to give these treasures a worthy abode, 
the King built in the close of his Palace the church 
which still stands, and is called the Holy Chapel, 
The work was the admiration of that age, as it has 
been of those succeeding, no less for the beauty of 
its fabric than for the splendour and richness of the 
shrines in which the holy relics were contained. 
The building is said to have cost forty thousand 
pounds ; a hundred thousand was spent on the 
shrines, which were encrusted with gold and jewels 
and the most precious kinds of stone. 





THE KINQ OF ENGLAND HUGH, COUNT OF LA MARCHE 

CHAPTER V 

THE ENGLISH WAR 
124I-I243 

LOUIS VIII. had by his will devised appanages 
to his younger sons, with which they were to 
be invested as they came of age. Robert had 
received the county of Artois ; and to the next 
brother, Alphonso, Poitou and Auvergne were al- 
lotted. Alphonso, who had been married to Joan, 
the heiress of Toulouse, according to the provisions 
of Meaux, reached his majority in 1241. In the 
same year the King brought him to Saumur on the 
border of Poitou, intending to install him in his 
new dominions. The occasion was marked with 
pomp and a great assembly of magnates and barons, 
in order the more to impress the provinces, which 
had hardly yet forgotten their old allegiance to 
Aquitaine. On the day of Saint John the Baptist, 
Louis knighted his brother and several other youths 
of rank ; and invested him with the counties of Poi- 
tou and Auvergne. High festivities followed, which 
Joinville, who was present, has described. The ban- 
quet was spread in the spacious cloisters built by 

105 



io6 Saint Louis [I24l- 

Henry Plantagenet, the second of England. The 
King, attired in a vest of blue satin and a surcoat 
and mantle of rose-colour trimmed with ermines, sat 
at the chief table with his brother, now styled Count 
of Poitiers, the Count of La Marche, Count Peter of 
Brittany, and the King of Navarre. The Counts of 
Artois and Soissons carved and served his meats ; 
his chair was guarded by Humbert of Beaujeu, Con- 
stable of France, Enguerrand of Coucy, and Archam- 
baud of Bourbon, each attended by thirty knights 
clothed in silk, behind whom stood trains of yeomen 
in blazoned tabards. Twenty Archbishops and 
Bishops ate at the middle table ; and beyond them 
was that of the Queen-mother, served by the Infant 
of Portugal, the Count of Saint Paul, and a young 
German prince, son of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. 
In the other cloisters, and on the turf in the centre, 
feasted a multitude of knights, three thousand in 
number. Men said that so many garments of silk 
and cloth of gold had never been seen before. 

After gorgeous ceremonies of investiture, the 
Court moved to Poitiers, that Alphonso might re- 
ceive the homage of his vassals, which was paid 
with apparent willingness in the face of so imposing 
a display of wealth and power. But he mounted a 
dangerous seat. The claim of the English King to 
Poitou was not renounced, nor his interest dead. 
The turbulent nobles of the province, loving a distant 
master and a light hand, and accustomed to balance 
France against England, though acknowledging the 
conquest, still kept some intelligence with their 
ancient suzerain, who was established in the neigh- 



1243] The English War 107 

bouring borders of Guyenne. The chief among them 
was Hugh of La Marche. Though a vassal of Poi- 
tou he took rank with the magnates of France. He 
was lord of Marche and Angouleme and much be- 
sides, the head of a House which had given kings 
to Cyprus and Jerusalem, and was married to the 
Queen dowager of England, whose aspiring spirit 
was ill content with a lower place. Having fought 
and negotiated with the King on an equal footing, he 
was reluctant to admit the closer and more irksome 
supremacy of a prince of the blood, which reduced 
both his power and dignity, placed a master between 
him and the King, and made him second man in a 
region where he had been first. He feasted with the 
rest at Saumur and paid his homage at Poitiers ; but, 
withdrawing immediately, gathered his forces and 
lay at Lusignan, threatening the Court. Louis 
would have been glad to be back in Paris ; but he 
did not venture to move until, after several confer- 
ences with the Count, an agreement was made, very 
disadvantageous to the Crown, by which war was 
averted for the moment. 

It was only a short respite. Count Hugh at once 
set himself to procure allies and contrive a league 
against the King. Henry of England listened 
gladly to his overtures, being particularly aggrieved 
by the contempt of his title shewn in granting Poi- 
tou to a French prince, when he had himself lately 
professed to confer it on his brother Richard. He 
forgot his former campaigns, and saw a most favour- 
able chance of recovering the dominions of his 
House. The Count of Toulouse came in readily. 



io8 Saint Louis 



[1241- 



hoping to shake off the fetters of the treaty which 
bound him, and the unwelcome heirship of his son- 
in-law. The King of Aragon joined on account of 
his pretensions in the south of France. The allies, 
already thus formidable, approached the Kings of 
Castile and Navarre and the Emperor himself, and 
by the common delusion of such coalitions seem to 
have expected, on slight grounds and the mere en- 
couragement of one another, the accession of those 
princes ; the event, however, disappointed them. 
Peter of Brittany was with them at first ; but, for a 
change, turned loyal, and betrayed their plans to the 
King. 

At Christmas Alphonso held a court at Poitiers 
and summoned the Count of La Marche among his 
other vassals to keep the festival. As matters were 
not yet ripe for war, Hugh was inclined to obey ; but 
changed his mind on the eve of going, under the 
persuasion and reproaches of his wife, who had no 
mind to give precedence to the Countess of Poitiers, 
and was still sore from the slights which she con- 
ceived the two Queens to have offered her in the 
summer. They came ; but only to defy Alphonso 
to his face and renounce allegiance ; then setting 
fire to the house where they had been lodged, rode 
out of the town with thundering threats, sur- 
rounded by armed men and archers with crossbows 
at stretch. Alphonso complained to the King, who 
summoned Hugh to appear at Paris and answer for 
his conduct. When the call was refused, he brought 
the matter up in Parliament before the peers, asking 
what should be done with a vassal who wished to 



1243] The E7tglish War 109 

hold his land without a lord and denied faith and 
homage. They replied that in such a case the 
lord should seize his fief. " By my name," said j 
Louis, — for that was the only oath he used,— "the! 
Count of La Marche wishes to hold in this manner 
lands which are fiefs of France since the time of 
King Clovis, who conquered Aquitaine from Alaric 
the pagan." 

The barons were strong against the Count, who, on 
his part, began to urge the English King to act 
quickly. Letters were sent, by Hugh or by Isabel, 
desiring him to come at once, with or without men, 
but with abundant supplies of money, which would 
raise and nourish an army from Gascony and Poitou. 
By this means, and with the help of Toulouse and 
Aragon, not to speak of the other confederates, his 
ancient provinces might be reconquered. 

The flattering prospect captivated Henry and his 
brother Richard and his Provencal counsellors, but 
was less attractive to the barons and prelates of 
England, whom he called together in January 
to ask an aid of money. They were not 
anxious to aggrandize the King, which re- 
sult must follow from a successful war abroad ; were 
tired of his expenses ; mistrusted Poitevin promises ; 
and were particularly displeased by the plan of cam- 
paign, which required nothing but money from 
England, and assigned to them the burden of support- 
ing an expedition from which they could gain no 
advantage. They therefore told the King in the 
plainest language that his extortions were too great ; 
that he had broken all the promises on the strength 



I lo Saint Loitis 



[1241- 



of which former subsidies had been granted ; and 
had not only plundered them himself, but had 
allowed the Pope's legates to follow and glean after 
his reaping. They were surprised that he had under- 
taken so hazardous a business without consulting 
them. There was truce with France ; let him wait 
till it expired, or till the French broke it ; then they 
would be willing to offer him their advice. In break- 
ing it wantonly, in attacking a great and powerful 
kingdom, and supporting its rebels, he was acting 
shamefully, to the peril of his soul and reputation 
and fortune. Finally they flatly refused to give any 
subsidy. 

Henry, however, was obstinately set on the enter- 
prise, and swore in anger that, come what might, he 
would cross the sea at Easter. He dealt with his 
reluctant subjects, calling them into his presence one 
by one ; and by the various arts of cajolery, menace, 
or exhortation, as seemed most suitable to each case, 
and by holding up the example of others, induced 
many to contribute privately the aid which collect- 
ively they had refused. By this means, though 
some stood firm, he gathered considerable sums of 
money, and was able to sail from Portsmouth in the 
middle of May, with his brother Richard and seven 
other Earls, three hundred knights, and thirty casks 
of silver coin. After touching at Finisterre for a 
single day he landed at Royan, at the mouth of the 
Garonne, where his mother met him ; he thence 
went to Pons and was received by Reginald, lord of 
the place, and by other barons of Saintonge. 

Meanwhile the Count of La Marche and his party 



1243] The English War 1 1 1 

were already in arms in Poitou ; nor had the French 
King been slow to take his measures. In the early 
spring he sent eighty armed galleys to guard La 
Rochelle against attack from the sea, and summoned 
the levy of his vassals and of the towns to a rendez- 
vous at Chinon. A force assembled in April of four 
thousand men-at-arms fully appointed, with twenty 
thousand slingers and footmen, and a baggage train 
of two thousand wagons. At the head of this army 
the King marched into Poitou, his numbers increasing 
as he went by streams of men arriving from every 
side. 

The strategy of the rebels was to hold castles and 
strong places, without venturing a pitched battle in 
the open, to which their strength was unequal until 
the whole force of their confederacy could be brought 
to bear. To this purpose they carefully strength- 
ened all their fortifications, barricaded and obstructed 
the passes and the roads, dug up the grass and 
the growing crops, cut down the vines, ruined the 
buildings, destroyed all food which they could not 
carry in, and choked, polluted, or poisoned the wells 
and streams, that the enemy might find nothing 
but an inhospitable and dangerous desert outside 
the walls of the towns and fortresses. 

These measures had a success later, in the sick- 
ness and want which overtook the French army, but 
did not hinder its first operations, so well was it 
provisioned with all kinds of supplies. Monstreuil 
and the tower of Beruge were taken by storm. 
Montcontour fell and Fontenay le Comte. Vouvent 
and Mervent surrendered on terms, and Geoffrey 



112 Saint LoMis [1241- 

their master, a cadet of Lusignan, made his peace, 
forsaking his kinsman and feudal lord. Louis then 
laid siege to Fontenay I'Abattu, Hugh's strongest 
castle, standing on the ridge of Saintonge, thought 
impregnable, and held by the bastard of La Marche, 
a famous soldier, with a numerous and faithful gar- 
rison. The attack was pressed day and night with 
all the resources known to military art; engines of 
war battered the place with stones, and archers shot 
a hail of arrows at anything that showed from behind 
the battlements : while constant assaults kept the de- 
fenders at full strain and quickly wore down their 
strength and endurance. 

As the siege was proceeding an embassy came to 
the camp from the King of England, who had not 
hitherto declared his intentions openly, but had writ- 
ten complaining of various matters as infractions of 
the truce, in order to build up a better pretext for 
breaking it himself. At the same time he hoped 
that the French army would exhaust its strength in 
long sieges, while his own increased. Their rapid 
and unexpected successes made it necessary to act 
before all the strongholds of his ally were lost. His 
envoys represented that their master was pained and 
surprised by the conduct of the King of France, 
which violated, he declared, the truce between them. 
According to the narrative of the English historian, 
Louis answered mildly, protesting that he had not 
broken the truce, and was so far from wishing to do 
so that he desired to prolong it for three years. He 
was also prepared to make large concessions, in order 
to settle the English claim on Poitou and Normandy, 



1243] The English War 113 

which his father had recognised in the treaty of 
London. But he must be left to deal with his own 
rebels and traitors without interference. The Counts 
of La Marche and Toulouse were his subjects, not 
England's ; the truce did not include them, nor 
should it shelter them from the punishment of their 
revolt. In sustaining them Henry himself was neg- 
lecting his solemn obligation towards France, as well 
as the close bond of relationship which united the 
two royal families. 

Louis was led to offer these concessions, the histo- 
rian continues, partly through fear lest the coalition 
should be too strong for him, if the Poitevins and 
English were aided by Aragon and Castile and Tou- 
louse, and possibly by a rising in Normandy ; but 
chiefly through respect for the oath which his father 
was said to have sworn to restore his rights to the 
English King. Be that as it may, the offer was 
rejected. Henry could hardly desert his allies at 
this stage, and hoped moreover to gain more by 
their help than was now conceded. He sent a formal 
defiance and declaration of war, alleging for cause 
the attack on his father, as he called him, the Count 
of La Marche ; a reason which left the French King 
in the right, according to the opinion of the time, 
since the Count was clearly in unprovoked rebellion 
against his sovereign. 

Nevertheless Louis was troubled at first with 
doubt ; but being reassured by his counsellors that 
his father's oath was no longer binding, since the 
English had themselves broken the treaty of London 
in several particulars, he became easy in mind, and 



114 Saint Lotns [I24i- 

pressed the siege with double vigour. At the same 
time the oriflamme of France was unfurled, as 
against a foreign enemy, and the general levy of the 
kingdom summoned to war, Fontenay I'Abattu was 
carried in fifteen days ; the captain and part of the 
garrison were taken alive. The King refused to 
hang them for their stubborn defence, though urged 
by many to make this example. But the capture of the 
place spread a panic terror through the neighbouring 
country. No more resistance was attempted : as 
the royal army approached, the magistrates and sen- 
eschals of towns and castles came out with the keys, 
and begged for terms. The strongest places were 
garrisoned for the King ; other fortifications were 
razed. 

The Count of La Marche saw his plans and power 
falling to pieces ; now, beginning to repent his rash- 
ness, he joined his forces to the English. After ad- 
vancing to Tonnay they retreated and lay in the 
meadows on the banks of the Charente, opposite the 
town of Taillebourg, sixteen hundred horse and 
twenty thousand foot, with seven hundred crossbow- 
men. The stream is deep and unfordable ; it was 
spanned by a narrow stone bridge with a castle at 
one end. As the French army occupied the town, 
. _ which welcomed their entry, the English 

marched down to the river to dispute the 
1242 ^ 

passage, and sent five hundred men to hold 

the bridge. The movement was made by night ; 
in the morning, which was Sunday, the 20th of 
July, they saw on the other side the royal stand- 
ard of France, a host of pavilions with banners 



1243] The English War 115 

flying, and tents like a great and populous city. 
When it was plain that he was far outnumbered, 
Henry turned on the Count of La Marche with re- 
proaches : "Where is your promise which you made 
in your letters, assuring us you would raise a great 
enough army to meet the King of France without 
fear, and that we need only take care to pro- 
vide money?" "I never did," replied the Count. 
Richard of Cornwall joined in : " Yes, for I have 
with me here your letter to that effect." " I never 
wrote or signed such a letter," said Hugh. " What," 
said the King, "what are you saying? Have you 
not often sent and begged me by letter and message 
to come here, and blamed me for delay ? Where is 
your promise? " " I never did this," Hugh declared, 
with a horrible oath. " Blame your mother, my 
wife." And he added, swearing and growling, " By 
God's throat ! it is she who has wrought this busi- 
ness without my knowledge." 

While this family quarrel was proceeding, the 
enemy were assaulting the bridge and making the 
passage in boats. Louis was in the front of the at- 
tack, and in great danger for a time, having advanced 
so quickly with a few followers that he found twenty 
to one against him. But reinforcements were soon 
pushed up, and the bridge was won. The whole 
French army was preparing to cross, and it seemed 
that the English King must be taken or killed. In 
the emergency, Richard of Cornwall, doffing his arm- 
our and taking a stick in his hand, went forward to 
ask an armistice. He was allowed to cross the bridge 
and make his way to the King, who had returned 



ii6 Saint Lottis [I24i- 

to his tent. The French made him welcome, for 
they held him in high esteem because of the part he 
had taken in liberating their captives in Palestine ; on 
this account, and because it was Sunday, one day's 
truce was granted. " Lord Earl, lord Earl," Louis 
said to him, as he was leaving, " I have given you 
this truce of a day and a night that you may take 
more wholesome counsel what to do ; for night is 
the mother of counsel." " It was for that purpose 
I sought the truce," Richard replied. Returning to 
his brother, he pressed on him the necessity of im- 
mediate retreat. Henry needed little persuading : 
they fed hastily, gathered their baggage, and as 
soon as night fell rode off, not sparing spurs, fol- 
lowed by their whole army in trouble and confusion, 
and for the most part fasting. Henry did not draw 
bridle till he reached Saintes. 

The French crossed the river the same night and 
followed towards Saintes on Tuesday. As a party 
of foragers plundered in advance they were fiercely 
attacked by the Count of La Marche, who rode out 
against them with his sons and a body of men, tell- 
ing no one, being stung by his step-son's reproaches, 
and wishing to repair his fame At first the foragers 
were driven in, then reinforced. The shouting and 
noise of battle reached both armies ; both pushed 
forward to aid, and soon a general engagement was 
set up in the vineyards and narrow lanes around 
Saintes. The English fought well, Simon Montfort 
of Leicester, William Longsword of Salisbury, and 
Roger Bigod of Norfolk, showing especial valour ; 
but numbers forced them back with a loss of many 



1243] The English War 117 

dead and prisoners. Some of the French in the 
ardour of fighting followed the retreating enemy 
into the town itself and were captured. 

Louis drew off his forces, not venturing to attempt 
Saintes by storm; but the victory was conclusive in 
his favour, and turned the balance of all who 
wavered. Its first effect was seen in overtures from 
the Count of La Marche, who had been much dis- 
couraged by the loss of his fortresses, and since the 
retreat from Taillebourg got no comfort from Henry, 
but black looks and blame for all the disasters of 
the campaign. If the English returned home he 
would be left at the King's mercy, and prudence bade 
anticipate the possible desertion. He sent a mes- 
sage to his old friend, Peter of Brittany, who was 
marshal of the French army, begging him and the 
Bishop of Saintes to invoke the royal clemency and 
forgiveness for a repentant rebel. Peter accepted 
the mission, pleased, no doubt, to see another reduced 
to the same submission as himself. Openly, he said 
to the King that the war was being stifled by its 
contriver ; that mercy might properly be shown to a 
liegeman who had gone astray, but who was now 
sufificiently punished by misfortune, and desired 
sincerely to return. Apart he hinted, with winks 
and whispers, that the King could tighten the terms 
as he pleased, when the Count was brought to his 
knees. The Bishop, a more simple and honest medi- 
ator, pleaded for amnesty on suitable conditions. 
Louis was well disposed to listen ; and favourable 
news of the negotiation being conveyed to Count 
Hugh, he separated himself from the EngHsh, who 



y 



ii8 Saint Louis [1241- 

still remained at Saintes, intending to make it their 
headquarters for a time. 

As King Henry was sitting down to meat, having 
returned from an expedition to Pons, just a week 
after the battle, a French knight came in at breath- 
less speed, one whom Richard had ransomed from 
the Saracens, to tell his preserver that the King of 
France was about to surround Saintes, meaning to 
blockade it with all the force of his kingdom, and to 
capture the whole English army. He added that 
the Count of La Marche had made his peace, and 
that all Poitou would follow his example. He had 
scarcely finished when another messenger came from 
the Count's sons, saying that the townspeople had 
intelligence with the enemy, and that if the English 
lay there that night they would be taken, or at any 
rate closely beleaguered. Henry hurried from the 
table, mounted a swift horse, and ordering the town 
to be set on fire rode at full speed, not caring who 
followed, to Blaye-on-Garonne, fourteen leagues off. 

The rest, as they heard the news, streamed after 
him as fast as they could, a disorderly, miserable 
rout of men and horses and baggage, so confused 
with panic that they rushed forward blindly, not 
stopping to rest or eat on the way, except for the 
fruits and berries they plucked from the roadside. 
Their track was marked by dead horses, exhausted 
men, and abandoned waggons. The King himself 
lost on the road all the furniture and ornaments of 
his chapel, as well as the relics which he carried with 
him ; for he was very devout. He reached Blaye, 
having gone without food or sleep the best part of two 



1243] The English War 119 

days and two nights ; but thought even that place 
unsafe, and decided to retire to Bordeaux where 
was his wife, who had just given birth to a daughter, 

Louis entered Saintes, and was welcomed by the 
citizens ; the same day he proceeded to Pons and 
received the submission of Reginald. On the mor- 
row the Count of La Marche came in with his wife 
and three sons and approached the King with every 
mark of contrition. Weeping and kneeling at his 
feet they cried, " Have pity on us, Sire ! pardon our 
misdeeds, according to the greatness of your mercy." 
It is related that Geoffrey of Rancon, a lord greatly 
wronged by the Count, who had sworn an oath to 
let his hair grow long like a woman till he was 
avenged, when he saw the humiliation of so great 
and proud a family, called for a barber, and had his 
hair trimmed on the spot before them all. 

The conditions of peace were sufficiently onerous, 
though less so than those suggested by Peter of 
Brittany. Hugh gave up for ever all his castles 
which had been taken in Poitou, and three others 
for three years ; he bound himself to serve the King 
for three years with two hundred knights, at his 
own charges, against the Count of Toulouse or any- 
one else ; surrendered the yearly pension of five 
thousand pounds, due under former treaties ; did 
homage to the King for Angouleme, and to Al- 
phonso for Lusignan and La Marche. Otherwise he 
was confirmed in his possessions, and received a 
promise that no truce should be made with England 
without consulting his interests. He was sent imme- 
diately, along with the Count of Brittany, to attack 



I20 Saint Loins 



[1241- 



Raymond of Toulouse, who was thus prevented 
from giving any aid to the English, though he vis- 
ited Henry at Bordeaux, encouraged him to con- 
tinue the war, and took from him a considerable 
sum of money. 

The rest of Poitou and the country up to the 
Garonne, seeing that the English King had aban- 
doned them as a sailor leaves a sinking ship, hastened 
to submit. The defection was general, of barons 
as well as towns, Montauban only with one or two 
other places of little importance holding out. Louis 
advanced to within a league of Blaye, intending to 
march thither and even to Bordeaux, and to finish 
the campaign by occupying all Guyenne. The en- 
emy was in no condition to withstand him, and had lit- 
tle chance of reinforcement from England, even had 
the barons there favoured the undertaking : for a con- 
voy of men and money, which the Archbishop of 
York, who was Regent, despatched, was dispersed 
and driven ashore by a tempest ; and, in the preda- 
tory naval war which followed, the ships of Rochelle 
and Calais and the Breton and Norman coasts kept 
the advantage over those of the Cinque Ports and 
drove them into their harbours. 

But obstacles of nature and of human character 
checked the tide of conquest. The wasted coun- 
try was no longer able to support the numerous 
French army as it increased in multitude, exhausted 
its original supplies, and marched farther from its 
base. The polluted waters and the heats of August 
bred disease among men and beasts enfeebled by 
toil and hunger. The malady became epidemic. 



1243] The English War 121 

Eighty barons died, each of whom fought under his 
own banner, and twenty thousand of the soldiery. 
The King himself fell grievously ill. Remembering 
his youth and delicate health, and that the sickness 
of a southern campaign had carried off his father, 
the prudent among his counsellors became anxious 
to remove him to a more healthy climate, away from 
the hardships of the field. Besides this, many great 
lords did not desire to see the victory too complete, 
or the English entirely driven out, considering their 
dominion in France a convenient counterpoise to the 
royal power, and a refuge for themselves, if need 
arose. Accordingly, from one motive or the other, 
a strong party advocated a truce, which Henry con- 
tinued to demand. It was granted in the . ^ 
end 01 August, and the army returned 
northwards with all possible haste, leaving ^ 

garrisons in Poitou. The King reached Paris in 
September and threw off his fever ; but the effects 
remained to enfeeble his frame, as they did in many 
others of the army. 

Though thus prevented of its fruits, the issue of 
the war was decided, and the danger of the coalition 
altogether dispersed. Raymond of Toulouse was 
barely able to hold his ground in Languedoc against 
the Counts of Brittany and La Marche assisted by 
his many neighbouring enemies, who took the op- 
portunity to pay off old grudges, and threatened to 
revive the terrors of a holy war, an excuse for which 
was given by a fresh outbreak against priests and 
friars in some parts of his domain. The King of 
Aragon, seeing Languedoc doubtful, and his way 



122 Saint Louis 



[1241- 



into France barred, made no movement, though pro- 
fessing good will ; and the other hopes of the con- 
federacy proved vainer still. Henry remained 
inactive at Bordeaux. A piteous letter to the Em- 
peror, dated in September, describes his misfortunes : 
" The King of France broke the truce ; we made 
war on him. Hugh, Count of La Marche, and Regi- 
nald of Pons betrayed us. Reginald of Pons bade 
us farewell and, giving us a Judas kiss, went to do 
the treachery he had planned. When, therefore, we 
could not remain longer among that false and lying 
people of Poitou without danger of our body, we 
crossed into Gascony, where we have dealt with our 
beloved kinsman, Raymond, Count of Toulouse, Mar- 
quis of Provence, about the betterment of our state. 
We might have many strong friends in Burgundy, 
were it in the hands of another than the Duke." 

He had replenished his coffers by the levy of a 
scutage in England, and emptied them on the needy 
and boastful race of Gascons. He was a laughing- 
stock to them and a reproach to his own followers. 
The Earl of Winchester and some others refused to 
stay, and asked a safe-conduct through France, which 
Louis granted, saying that he gladly let them go in 
the hope that they would never come back. Rich- 
ard of Cornwall soon followed, with the Earl Marshal 
and the Earl of Hereford, disgusted by Henry's 
idleness and extravagance and entire subservience 
to the self-interested counsels of foreign flatterers. 
His treasures being spent, he ran into debt, pledging 
his own credit and that of Simon of Montfort and 
William Longsword, who stayed with him, though 



1243] The English War 123 

chafing and neglected. Even the Gascons, by whom 
he was governed, began to voice their contempt ; 
and tales of his folly spread to the French Court 
and were repeated to the King as matter of con- 
gratulation. " Let be, let be," said Louis. " Do not 
mock him. His prayers and almsgivings shall de- 
liver him from danger and reproach." 

At the end of the autumn the Count of Toulouse 
submitted, using the mediation of the Queen-mother, 
his cousin, who was always well-disposed towards 
him. No more than submission was required ; for 
peace was the interest of the kingdom ; nor was it 
desirable to devastate or embitter a province, the 
succession of which was assured to the royal family. 
Raymond gave pledges of good faith, and 
met the King in January at Lorris, where a 
treaty was made ratifying the provisions of 
Meaux, the Count ceding the town of Narbonne and 
several castles in addition. Later in the same year 
he proceeded to Rome, and was reconciled to the 
Apostolic See upon Louis's intercession, occupying 
himself thereafter in an attempt to mediate between 
the Church and the Emperor. 

Henry wrote again to the Emperor in January, 
lamenting this new desertion of his beloved kins- 
man. Nevertheless he was determined, he said, to 
stay in Gascony in order to oppress his enemies and 

reform his affairs. It would, however, have . ^ 

AD 
been desperate to renew the war against 

France, abandoned by his allies : the truce 

was confirmed and defined in April, to run for 

five years from that date. The French retained 



124 Saint Louis [1241- 

all they had conquered ; while Henry was obliged 
to evacuate some places which he had retaken af- 
ter their retreat by the help of his Gascons, and 
to pay a thousand pounds yearly while the truce 
lasted. 

In spite of this conclusion, war continued on the 
high seas some months longer, Peter of Brittany 
having returned to his trade of a privateer, which 
he followed to great profit against merchants trad- 
ing between England and Gascony, until Louis by 
a threat of outlawry compelled him to desist. The 
English King lingered at Bordeaux till October, 
when at last he tore himself away from the im- 
portunate affection which his purse rather than his 
person had kindled in his southern subjects, and 
landed safely at Portsmouth, loaded with debt to 
the amount of three hundred and fifty thousand 
marks. 

" From this time," a contemporary writer observes, 
" the barons of France undertook nothing against 
their anointed Lord, seeing that God was with 
him." The issue of the last rebellion, which itself 
depended chiefly on external aid, and took the shape 
of foreign rather than of civil war, crowned the 
struggle of three reigns. The monarchy rose su- 
perior over the magnates, and all the provinces of 
France lay in the shadow of its prestige and au- 
thority. The King was firmly established in his im- 
mediate domain ; to which a considerable part of the 
English possessions had been added, besides further 
acquisitions. Other extensive territories were being 
broken to the yoke under the government of princes 




SEAL OF FERRAND, COUNT OF FLANDERS. 




SEAL OF SAINT LOUIS. 



1243] The English War 125 

of the blood, and ripening towards union with the 
central power. The great feudatories had been 
weakened and taught to recognise a master. Brittany 
was humbled ; Toulouse all but annexed ; Cham- 
pagne dependent on the King's good will. The 
most formidable of all, the House of Plantagenet, 
which once had seemed likely to swallow the whole 
kingdom, was now definitely ranked as a foreign 
power. It had been repulsed in the attempt to re- 
gain its former footing, and held its remaining pos- 
sessions in Guyenne and Gascony on sufferance, 
which made them a hostage rather than a menace 
to France. A further measure was taken towards 
breaking its influence in the second year of the 
truce, when Louis enacted in Parliament at Paris 
that all who held fiefs both in France and England 
must resign either one or the other. Henry re- 
taliated by depriving Normans and other French- 
men of their English fiefs, without allowing them the 
choice ; which caused much complaint. 

A strict hand was kept over Poitou after the set- 
tlement. Hugh of La Marche, in particular, was 
made sensible of the altered position of affairs ; for 
the turn of events had much damaged his reputation, 
and let loose enemies acquired in prosperity ; while 
the Count of Poitiers, like his brother Robert, was 
hot-tempered towards the magnates, inclined to re- 
sent their misconduct and disdain their claims of 
privilege. A year after the truce a knight accused 
Hugh of treason, and he was summoned to Paris to 
answer before the King and the Count of Poitiers. 
The accuser met his denial by throwing down a 



126 Saint Lotiis [1241-1243] 

gauntlet and offering to prove his charge on the de- 
fendant's body in single combat. The right was al- 
lowed by the custom of the age ; but public feeling 
condemned its exercise by an inferior against a man 
of advanced years and so high in rank. The Count's 
eldest son stepped forward, desiring to fight in his 
father's place ; but Alphonso interfered, declaring 
that Hugh himself should undergo the combat or be 
adjudged guilty ; and it was so decided. The great 
barons, touched in their pride and compassion by 
the abasement and danger of a leader of their order, 
pleaded with the King to reverse this judgment, 
urging the alienation of a powerful family, should 
the Count fall, and a renewal of trouble in Poitou 
from their anger and vengeance. Their arguments 
were effective to save him, the accuser being induced 
to withdraw his challenge. At the news of this 
affair the Countess-Queen Isabel fled to the abbey of 
Fontevraud for sanctuary, fearing that some attempt 
might be made to punish her also, since many laid 
the blame of the late rebellion at her door, and an 
attempt on her part to poison the King was alleged 
to have been detected during its course. 



THE EMPEROR HENRY, LANDGRAVE OF 

THURINQIA 



CHAPTER VI 

PRELIMINARIES OF THE CRUSADE 
I 243-1 248 

MEANWHILE the relations with the Empire 
continued on a friendly footing. Whatever 
promises Frederick may have made to the 
confederates, he never gave them the least assist- 
ance, and was so far from resenting the sharp terms 
in which Louis had demanded the release of the 
French bishops, that he wrote to him half a year 
later to explain and justify his action in de- 
vastating the neighbourhood of Rome, and 
to propose a marriage between Conrad his 
son, King of the Romans, and the King's sister Isa- 
bel, desiring, as it seems, to substitute a tie with 
France for the English connexion which had been 
broken by the death of the Empress eighteen months 
before. The negotiation, however, came to nothing. 
The discords of Christendom still burned fiercely. 
Pope Gregory IX. had died in August, 1241, worn 
out by them, it was said, and by grief at the Em- 
peror's successes ; in addition to this he was afflicted 
by gravel, was debarred by the war from the baths 

127 



128 Saint Lottis 



[1243- 



of Viterbo, his usual cure, and was nearly a hundred 
years old. His successor, Celestin IV., died also a 
fortnight after election. A new choice was pre- 
vented during nearly two years by dissensions and 
private ambition among the seven cardinals, who 
were all that were left except the two held in prison 
by the Emperor. At last, pressed by Frederick, 
who had released his prisoners and hoped by their 
means to obtain a nomination favourable to his 
cause ; by Louis, who exhorted them to proceed 
boldly, promising that he would defend the liberties 
of the Church, and by the French prelates, who 
threatened to name a Pope for themselves if Peter's 
chair were left vacant any longer, they gathered at 
Anagni in June, 1243, and elected Sinnibald, Cardi- 
nal of St. Lawrence, a Genoese of the family . of 
Fieschi, who took the style of Innocent, being the 
fourth of that name. 

This choice was a heavy blow to the Emperor ; 
for the new Pope took up the quarrel of the Church 
in a stubborn, single-minded temper, inflexible of 
purpose and flinching from no extremity. His first 
act was to renew the anathema pronounced by 
Gregory. Negotiations for peace, in which the King 
of France took great concern, were set on foot 
through the Count of Toulouse and others, and 
seemed at first to be leading to a settlement. But 
neither party trusted the other, while the Pope de- 
manded an absolute submission, which Frederick 
was not brought low enough to endure. All ended 
in fresh recriminations ; and Innocent prepared far- 
reaching plans against his enemy, devising another 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 129 

general Council for his condemnation. He created 
ten cardinals to support and assist his labours, and 
sent nuncios through Europe to raise money from the 
Churches by all possible means of subsidy, gift, or 
trafific. Finding Rome and Italy, from the neigh- 
bourhood of the Imperial armies, too perilous a base 
of action, he resolved to migrate beyond the Alps. 
The design was well and secretly conceived to avoid 
interception. Still keeping up the pretence of nego- 
tiation, he came to Sutri ; then delivered his refusal 
of the Emperor's terms ; and having heard, as he 
said, that an attempt to kidnap him was in view, 
took horse suddenly by night and fled at breakneck 
speed with two attendants to Civita Vecchia. By an 
incredible chance, had it not been arranged, twenty- 
three fighting galleys of the Genoese, his country- 
men, commanded by the admiral of the State, were 
there to meet him. He reached Genoa safely through 
a storm. The Emperor dissembled his annoyance 
under a jest: " The wicked flee when no man pur- 
sueth," he said when the news came ; but he felt 
the stroke, and caused the approaches to Genoa to 
be closely guarded, especially on the side of France. 
Nevertheless, a few months afterwards. Innocent 
reached Asti by a sudden march, escorted by the 
Genoese, and made as if to winter there ; but soon 
starting again by stealth, and travelling night and 
day over dangerous roads, eluded the Im- 

perial ambuscades, and passed through the 

i '^ . 1244 

states of the Count of Savoy, his supporter, to 

the city of Lyons, where he established himself about 

the middle of December. The place was a fief of the 



130 Saint Louis Li 243- 

Empire, governed by its Archbishop, and from its 
position moderately secure. 

The Pope would have preferred a refuge in France. 
In the autumn of the same year the Cistercian order 
held its customary general chapter at Cisteaux. The 
King had declared his purpose of attending, in order 
to ask the prayers of the assembly ; he came with 
his brothers and the Duke of Burgundy and the 
Queen-mother, on whom the Pope had conferred the 
unusual privilege of entering a house of monks. As 
he approached the monastery the five hundred ab- 
bots of the order came running to meet him, and 
led the royal company into the chapter-house, where, 
when they were seated, all fell on their knees round 
the King, beseeching him with tears to defend the 
father and shepherd of the Church against Satan's 
son, the Emperor, and to afford him shelter in the 
kingdom, if necessity came. They did this comply- 
ing with an epistle from Innocent. Louis, not to be 
taken by surprise, answered kindly, but in guarded 
terms, that he would defend the Church against the 
Emperor, as far as he honourably could ; and would 
receive the Pope, if such was the advice of his barons. 

Papal envoys formally repeated the request before 
the King in council, asking that the Holy Father 
might be allowed to reside at Rheims, of which the 
Archbishop was just dead. But the barons, not de- 
siring to make France the nest of so troublesome 
and expensive a visitor, in which he might hatch mis- 
chief and devour their substance, refused with one 
voice to consent. Innocent applied to England also 
and to Aragon for an asylum, and was denied by 




INNOCENT IV. 

FROM A PAINTING IN THE BASILICA OF ST, PAUL'S, ROME. 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 131 

both ; though the English King was only stopped 

from admitting him by the protests of his council. 

His cause was unpopular through the extortions of 

his agents, in France not less than elsewhere, with 

clergy as well as with laymen. It is related that a 

priest of Paris, when the anathema against Frederick 

was ordered to be published in the churches, cursed 

with book and bell the party who was wrong in the 

quarrel, saying that he could not tell whether it was 

Pope or Emperor. 

In Advent Louis was attacked by a return of his 

Poitevin sickness, which took the form of dysentery 

added to a fierce fever. It seemed impossible . ^ 

A.D. 
that he could long sustain the force of the 

malady. Barons and prelates gathered round 

his bed at Pontoise, and prayers and processions 

were made in the churches of Paris. He called his 

ofiicers to him, thanked them for their services, and 

exhorted them to obey God. Growing worse, he 

lay for a long time unconscious, none knowing if 

he still lived. A report of his imminent death ran 

through the country and filled it with mourning ; the 

people thronged the churches with supplications 

and offerings for his safety, calling him a just and 

peaceful prince. The sacred relics were brought to 

his bedside, and his mother, as she stood sobbing and 

praying, laid the Cross and the Crown of Thorns on 

his body, with a vow that if her son were restored 

he should visit Christ's Sepulchre and give thanks in 

the land consecrated by his Redeemer's blood. As 

she and all around continued in prayer, the King, 

groaning and moving his arms, awoke from the 



132 Saint Lottis 1243- 

trance, and spoke in a broken and hollow voice: 
" The Dayspring from on high hath visited me, and 
hath lifted me up out of the shadow of death." 

When he was restored a little he called for the 
Bishop of Paris, and bade him fix the cross of the 
oversea passage on his shoulder. The Bishop be- 
sought a little delay ; and both Queens, overcome 
with grief and remorse, fell on their knees, entreating 
him not to take the irrevocable step till his strength 
returned. But Louis insisted that he would neither 
eat nor drink till he had received the cross ; the 
Bishop afifixed it, shedding tears. From that time, 
though not at once out of danger, he returned 
slowly to health. Blanche repented bitterly of her 
rash vow, which had received so sudden effect, and 
those who loved the King best shared her misgiv- 
ings. But Louis himself showed nothing but joy at 
the prospect of his pilgrimage. 

News came soon which seemed to reveal God's 
hand in the matter. Through the quarrels of the 
Sultans of Egypt and Damascus, and by alliance 
with the latter, the Christians of the East had been 
established in full possession of the Holy City. 
The enjoyment was short ; to avenge himself and 
annoy his enemies the Sultan of Egypt invited the 
Khorasmians to invade Palestine. This warlike 
horde of Turcoman adventurers was wandering on 
the north-eastern confines of Syria, having been 
driven from their original home by a reflux of Tar- 
tar conquest : they readily accepted his pay and 
promises, and entered the country, a vast host of 
horsemen. The fortifications of Jerusalem had not 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 133 

been rebuilt since the time of Saladin, and the Christ- 
ians determined to fly to the strong cities of the 
coast. The greater part of the inhabitants started 
on the march, men, women, and children, leaving a 
few behind. Advanced parties of the Khorasmians 
occupied the town without difificulty, and, disap- 
pointed of their prey, conceived a plan to lure it 
back : they hung out over the ruined walls Christian 
banners and ensigns which they found in the place. 
Some who had stayed in hiding among the hills re- 
cognised the blazons, and believing that the invaders 
had been repulsed sent swift messengers to recall 
their countrymen, now half-way to Joppa. The 
wiser heads, expecting a snare, continued the march ; 
but the multitude could not be restrained from 
rushing back to their homes. The Turcomans, who 
had retired meanwhile, immediately surrounded the 
city and entered it by assault, killing without re- 
spect of age or sex. Some fled to the caves and 
mountains, only to be butchered miserably by the 
Moslem peasantry, nominally their allies. Out of 
above seven thousand not three hundred escaped 
death or slavery. The altars were destroyed and 
the Holy Places defiled, which the Saracens had 
always respected ; the marble pillars stand- 

ing at the entrance of our Lord's Sepulchre 

1244 
were sent to adorn the tomb of Mahomet 

at Medina. Since that unhappy day Jerusalem has 
never been in the hands of the Christians. 

The invaders advanced towards the sea, being 
joined by an army from Egypt. They were en- 
countered near Gaza, the i8th of October, 1244, by 



134 Saint Louis [1243- 

the Christian forces with which were succours from the 
Sultan of Damascus. The Saracen alHes fled at the 
first shock ; but the Christians, who had been en- 
raged to extremity by the savage excesses of the 
Infidels, fought with desperate valour, were over- 
whelmed by tenfold numbers, and almost annihil- 
ated. Six hundred knights of the Orders were 
engaged ; thirty-three Templars, twenty-three Hos- 
pitallers, and three Teutonic were all that escaped. 
The Preceptor of the Teutonic Order, the Bishop of 
Saint George, and many barons of Palestine died on 
the field. The Archbishop of Tyre, the Grand 
Masters of the Temple and the Hospital, were taken 
alive. After this defeat, the remaining stiength of 
the Christians was cooped closely in a few fortified 
towns, expecting a siege every day. They could see 
the roving Turcoman bands from the battlements of 
Acre, where most were gathered, and whence they 
wrote lamentable letters to the Western princes 
relating the misfortunes of their state and appealing 
for instant aid. 

The tidings had not arrived except in rumour at 
the time of the King's sickness ; but some declared 
that he had seen in his trance a vision of the slaugh- 
ter at Gaza. It is not afifirmed, however, by any 
trustworthy authority that Louis ever spoke of this, 
and the tale may be imputed to the imagination of 
an age greedy of coincidence and miracle. But it is 
not doubtful that he afterwards believed his vow to 
have been divinely inspired for the restoration of the 
Christian fortunes in their hour of greatest need. 
This conviction sustained him against the many 






V 




SAINT LOUIS PRAYING BEFORE A SHRINE. 

FROM A BAS-RELIEF OF THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY IN THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME. 



t248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 135 

discouragements which surrounded the inception of 
his undertaking. By this time, the fever of the cross 
was beginning to weaken in men's blood. Reason- 
ing on the subject fought with zeal, and self-inter- 
est sapped devotion, though habit and prejudice 
remained powerful allies. The King's path was 
beset by obstacles of policy, which his counsellors 
had more prudence to observe and exaggerate than 
enthusiasm to override. And the same arguments 
which did not deter him were effective to drag back 
others, so that the greater share of burden and 
labour fell on his shoulders. This was so in the 
kingdom ; and there was no more eagerness outside. 
The King of England, though pious, said that he 
had too many enemies to take the cross. The Em- 
peror professed good will and a desire to help, but 
gave little besides. The Pope blessed the enterprise, 
but with mind and heart running on his own af- 
fairs, and valued one soldier or one bezant brought 
against the Emperor more than ten spent in com- 
bating the Infidel. 

In January, 1245, Innocent sent out circular let- 
ters of summons to a general Council, naming three 
subjects to be treated ; the troubles of the East, the 
danger from the Tartars, and the dispute of the 
Church with Frederick, mentioning last the true 
cause of assembly. The Council met at Lyons in 
June ; the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, 
and Aquileia attended, and a hundred and forty- 
four prelates, few from Germany ; also the Emperor 
Baldwin, the Counts of Toulouse and Provence, and 
proctors from the Kings of France and England, 



136 Saint Louis [1243- 

Thaddeus of Suessa, a scholar, statesman and soldier 
of high repute, appeared on the part of the Em- 
peror. He defended his master eloquently and 
well; but the Pope had the Council well in hand, 
and would listen to no excuse or suggestion of com- 
promise. A flood of invective was poured on Fred- 
erick's private and public character, and a fortnight 
given for him to appear in person and answer the 
charges ; but this was done with reluctance and at the 
pressing instance of the French and English proctors. 
He refused to come; and Thaddeus, seeing how 
strongly the current ran, entered a formal protest, 
appealing to a future Pope and a more general Coun- 
cil. Judgment and doom followed: Frederick's 
crimes were recited at length, his subjects absolved 
from their obedience, the Empire declared vacant, 
and the kingdom of Sicily put at the Pope's 
disposal. The unqualified terms of the sen- 
tence, as it was read in full Council, filled all 
with amazement and trembling; the Imperial envoys 
withdrew, prophesying sorrow and disaster ; and the 
ambassadors of secular princes heard with uneasi- 
ness the absolute power to bind and to loose, to 
pull down and set up, which was claimed by the 
Apostolic See. The same day the Pope and all the 
Cardinals and Bishops cursed the Emperor solemnly 
in the church of St. James, reversing and extin- 
guishing their tapers as a symbol of his end. 

The work of the Council was done with the con- 
demnation ; but, before separating, letters were is- 
sued against the Tartars, regulations drawn up for 
the propagation and government of the crusade, and 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 137 

decrees made about ecclesiastical lawsuits and the 
nature and use of excommunication and other mat- 
ters concerning the Church. 

When Frederick heard what had happened, he fell 
into ungovernable rage, and calling for the coffer 
containing his crowns set one on his head, and 
swore he would not yield it to Pope or Council with- 
out a bloody struggle. Afterwards he wrote circular 
letters denying the Council's authority and title to 
be called general, and inveighing against the aggres- 
sions and extortions of Rome. To the French he 
promised that, if peace were made, he or Conrad his 
son would make the passage, with the King or in his 
stead ; if not, he would still give the crusaders all 
help by land and sea, with ships and supplies, as far 
as his business and occasions allowed. He reiterated 
the common danger of monarchs from the ambitious 
pretensions of the Apostolic See, which none could 
expect to withstand, were it inflated with the tri- 
umph and prestige of the Emperor's overthrow. 
The argument commended itself to secular jealousy ; 
nevertheless his cause received much damage from 
the judgment of the Council, which seemed to mark 
him formally as enemy of the whole Church, con- 
demned on account of spiritual, no less than of 
temporal errors. 

The King held a Parliament at Paris in October on 
the subject of his crusade. He had requested a 
special Legate from the Pope, who commis- 
sioned Odo of Chateau-Roux, Cardinal of 
Tusculum, an upright and prudent priest ; 
moved by his exhortations and the King's on this 



138 Saint Louis [1423- 

occasion many great persons took the cross : Robert 
of Artois, Peter of Brittany and his son John, Hugh 
of La Marche, the Dukes of Burgundy and Brabant, 
the Counts of Saint Paul, Bar, and Dreux, Raoul of 
Coucy, and, among prelates, the Archbishops of 
Rheims, Sens, and Bourges, the Bishops of Beauvais, 
Laon, and Orleans. Meanwhile, as his voyage must 
be delayed by the necessity for long preparation, 
Louis joined with Templars and Hospitallers to send 
money and men to the succour of Palestine. It was 
ordained in the Parliament that a truce of five years 
should be imposed on private wars throughout the 
realm, lest the crusade might be hindered ; and that 
all who took the vow should be given three years' 
respite from their debts ; an enactment much com- 
plained of and cast up against the King by the 
moneyed class of citizens, who held mortgages on 
many noble and knightly fiefs. 

At the end of November, Louis met the Pope at 
Cluny, having invited him thither to a conference. 
So spacious was the abbey that it afforded lodging 
at this time to the King, his mother, brother, and 
sister, to the Emperor of the East, the Princes of 
Aragon and Castile, the Duke of Burgundy and a 
numerous train of barons, as well as to the Pope, two 
Patriarchs, and twelve Cardinals, without disturbing 
the monks from their usual dwelling. Louis and 
Blanche conferred with Innocent for seven days in 
secret, no other person being present. The crusade 
and the reconciliation of the Emperor were conject- 
ured to be the subject of their deliberation. No 
result appeared but the arrangement of a further 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 139 

conference in the following year, in which it was 
hoped that Frederick would take part. 

From Cluny the King visited his lately acquired 
county of Macon, and returned to Paris for Christ- 
mas. He was accustomed to give cloaks to the 
knights of his household at this season, and it is 
related that he secretly caused a cross to be embroid- 
ered in gold on each garment. The household, being 
summoned as usual to rise before dawn and attend 
the King to mass, put on their new cloaks in the 
dark. When it grew light, and they saw the cross on 
one another's shoulders, at first they were filled with 
wonder and mirth, then understood the pious trick. 
Touched with love and devotion they were ashamed 
to lay the cross aside, and regarding the King, says 
the chronicler, with mingled laughter and tears, called 
him a hunter of pilgrims and a new fisher of men. 

The House of France received in this year a further 
addition of fortune. Raymond Berenger, dying in Au- 
gust, bequeathed his domains to his remain- 

in? daughter, Beatrix ; the third, Sanchia, 

. 1245 

had been married to Richard of Cornwall 

two years before. A crop of suitors sprang up for 
the hand of the heiress, who had beauty as well as 
Provence for her dower. The Count of Toulouse 
was negotiating the marriage for himself; the King 
of Aragon sought it for his son ; both entered the 
country and threatened it with their forces. Mean- 
while a bolder wooer of humbler rank carried off the 
lady and held her prisoner in his castle. Her uncles, 
Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Philip, 
Bishop of Valence, who, according to the scandalous 



140 Saint Louis 



[1243 



custom of their family, joined to great ecclesiastical 
preferment the habits and life of soldiers of fortune, 
cut down their woods, taxed their clergy, hired mer- 
cenaries, and came to defend their niece. They were 
helped by their elder brother, the Count of Savoy. 
The King of France, on leaving Cluny, sent five hun- 
dred knights from his escort for the same purpose. 
The Countess dowager and the Regents of Provence 
desired to marry Beatrix to Charles, youngest brother 
of Louis ; for they had a great respect for the King, 
and were better satisfied with him than with the 
English husbands of her sisters. The ravisher was 
attacked in his stronghold and forced to yield his 
prize. Toulouse and Aragon withdrew in fear of 
France. Charles travelled to Provence with a splen- 
did escort, and espoused the young Countess in 
midwinter ; then, returning to France with his bride, 
was made a knight and received his appanage of 
Anjou and Maine the next summer. 

In January, 1246, the King, on account of his im- 
pending voyage, sought a prolongation of the truce 
with England, which had two more years to run. 
He is reported to have made secret proposals for its 
conversion into a regular treaty of peace, offering to 
surrender his conquests in Aquitaine in return for a 
final abdication of the claim onNormandy. Henry put 
these overtures aside, reluctant to renounce his inheri- 
tance, and trusting to the chances of the future ; but he 
was willing, he said, to extend the truce for the sake of 
the crusade, if he were given four castles in Provence, 
which he claimed in right of his wife. The negotiation 
stuck on this proviso, and nothing was concluded. 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 141 

The same month a dispute which had grievously 
embroiled the northern borders of France was referred 
to the arbitration of Louis and the Legate Odo. 
Joan, Countess of Flanders and Hainault, dying 
childless in 1244, was succeeded by her sister Mar- 
garet. This unfortunate princess had been wedded 
in her youth to Bouchard of Avesnes, a notable 
soldier, and had by him two sons, John and Bald- 
win. But Bouchard had been once in religious 
orders, and had deserted them for arms. This be- 
coming known, the Pope declared the marriage null 
and void, and the censures of the Church compelled 
a separation. Some years afterwards, Margaret mar- 
ried William of Dampierre and had three sons, 
William, Guy, and John. By this time both families 
were grown up ; and the sons of the former bed, 
supported by their relations, the Counts of Holland 
and Saint Paul, contested the inheritance of Flanders 
and Hainault with the family of Dampierre. By 
strict rule the eldest son of one or the other marriage 
should have reaped the whole succession ; but the 
arbitrators, with consent of the parties, awarded a 
division : Flanders to William of Dampierre, and 
Hainault to John of Avesnes. The quarrel settled 
by this compromise broke out again, as will be re- 
lated, to disturb the peace in the King's absence, 
and was composed a second time by his authority. 

In the spring Louis and the Pope had 
another meeting at Cluny. Lmocent was ' J 

high in fortune; he was just bringing the 
Archbishops of the Rhine and other German princes 
to elect a new King of the Romans, the Landgrave 



142 Saint Loitis [124'»- 

Henry of Thuringia, the last descendant of Charle- 
magne in right line, who might, he hoped, enforce the 
sentence of deposition and dispossess Frederick of the 
Empire. Moreover his treasury had been filled by 
the diligence and severity of his travelling legates. 
Men said that no Pope since Saint Peter had been so 
rich. He was no more disposed, therefore, by circum- 
stances than he was by character to abate one jot 
from his pretensions ; while the Emperor, on the same 
considerations, was inclined to go far in concession, 
and in requesting the King's mediation promised to 
spend the rest of his life reconquering Palestine, pro- 
vided his son might be allowed to succeed him in 
the Empire, and both be fully absolved by the Church. 

Innocent rejected the proposal scornfully, saying 
that Frederick had made many such promises and 
broken them all, and was not to be dealt with ex- 
cept on complete submission. Louis urged accept- 
ance, or at least negotiation. He pointed out that, 
next to God, the Emperor had most power to help 
or hamper the crusade and the general cause of 
Christendom, from his mastery of the seas and har- 
bours and islands, and his acquaintance and influence 
in the East. But the Pope was proud and obdurate ; 
and the King took his leave, says the chronicler, in- 
dignant to have found so little of the humility he 
hoped in the servant of the servants of God. 

He continued, however, his endeavours after 

peace, sending the Bishop of Senlis and the 

,' Warden of Bayeux to Lyons with further 

1246 , T ^ , ^ , , • ^T 

proposals. Innocents answer, dated ni JNlo- 
vember, shewed no desire for compromise. He had 



1248] PreliTninaries of the Crusade 143 

sought peace, he said, before the Council of Lyons, 
but in vain, and had httle hope that it could now be 
obtained. Nevertheless, the Church's bosom was 
never closed against a returning prodigal ; the Vicar 
of Christ, like his Master, did not desire the death of 
a sinner, but rather that he should repent and live, 
and would receive the Emperor if he came back into 
the fold ; and, out of special regard for the person of 
his intercessor, would deal with him as gently as 
might be without sin against God and the honour of 
the Church. 

His stiff, unrelenting attitude, which Frederick 
did not fail to heighten and to reproach, alienated 
many minds from the Apostolic See, particularly on 
account of the injury which it seemed to offer to the 
Christian cause in the East. The Egyptian Sultan 
had a great respect for the Emperor, who had made 
a treaty with his father, and refused this year to 
listen to overtures of truce put forward by the Pope 
and the Templars, unless they gained his support ; 
but they scouted the notion, and reviled Frederick 
for his friendship with Infidels. Innocent had no 
intention of allowing the recovery of Jerusalem to 
interfere with his designs. While he commanded 
the Frisians, who had taken vows, to hold themselves 
ready to join the King of France in his . 
passage, he sent secret despatches to his ' I 
Legates to suspend the preaching of the 
crusade in Germany, lest it should interfere with 
the holy war which he had ordered to be proclaimed 
against the Emperor. 

The ill success of his mediation did not discour- 



144 Saint Louis [1243- 

age the King from pushing forward the preparation 
of his voyage. He began to accumulate all kinds of 
stores and supplies in Cyprus. The Emperor aided, 

_ writing in November to his justiciaries and 
/ chamberlains in the kingdom of Sicily, to let 
horses, arms, and provisions be bought and 
exported freely by those acting on the French King's 
behalf. Louis also improved and fortified Aigues 
Mortes, the only Mediterranean port in his own 
dominions. The walls remain to-day, but the place 
is several miles inland, the harbour having been 
choked by sand in the course of time. He levied a 
tithe on the revenues of the clergy by leave of the 
Pope. The towns also paid large contributions, 
Paris alone furnishing ten thousand pounds. 

By custom and papal decree those who assumed 
the cross were received into the protection of the 
Church. Some were always found to abuse this ad- 
vantage, committing crimes of violence and robbery, 
and evading civil justice under shelter of their tem- 
porarily sacred character. Louis sought and ob- 
tained the withdrawal of the privilege from those 
convicted of such offences. 

The necessities or the avarice of the Roman court 
had long opened a bottomless gulf, into which was 
poured the tribute of many kingdoms, and of France 
not least. Every device of mediaeval taxation was 
practised to drain the treasures of the Galilean 
Church into papal coffers. To a regular impost on 
ecclesiastical revenues, and to aids and subsidies and 
forfeits levied on every possible occasion, were added 
the profits of transactions which bore the appearance 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 145 

of simony. For example, before the Council of 
Lyons, Odo, Abbot of Saint Denis, procured a nom- 
ination from the Pope to the archbishopric of 
Rouen by a gift of several thousand pounds which he 
wrung from his abbey. The King, however, upon 
hearing of it, forced him to repay the money. 

About the same time Louis and his barons, as- 
sembled in council, despatched to the Pope a 
long and reasoned remonstrance against his * ' 

• T • 1 111 1245 

exactions. It is new, they say, and unheard 
of in previous times that the Roman See should levy 
for all its needs on the temporalities of the French 
clergy. Preaching friars are sent through the realm, 
extorting money from bishops and high abbots with 
threats of excommunication, so that the successors 
of the Apostles are taxed like serfs or Jews. The 
evil has increased since Innocent's arrival at Lyons. 
His emissaries have become open and shameless in 
their demands, which hitherto had been covered with 
a decent veil of secrecy. He has given away to his 
foreign nominees a host of benefices, even those not 
yet vacant, contrary to usage and to the canons. 
The bishops can no longer provide for the learned 
and honest clergy of their dioceses ; and prejudice is 
done to the King and his nobles, whose relations 
and friends were accustomed to have preferment in 
the Church. Strangers and Italians are appointed, 
who do not reside, but withdraw their revenue out 
of the realm ; thus avoiding the intention of pious 
founders, who designed theirbenefactions to support 
the ministry of God in their native place, and the 
residue, if any, to be given to the poor; or, if need 



146 Saint Louis [1243- 

were, to the King's defence. A new grievance has 
been added lately in the Pope's order to the clergy 
to supply him with soldiers against his persecutor, 
who is coming, he says, to attack him. Let him 
remember the counsel of the Gospel — "If they 
persecute you in one city, flee into another." The 
King's ancestors founded and endowed the churches 
of France ; and their temporal possessions are sub- 
ject to him alone. He will never, while he lives, 
allow the Church to be yoked with injury, impover- 
ishment, and servitude, through which it is made 
unable to perform the service of God, and to ful- 
fil the obligations it owes to himself and others : 
nor the kingdom to be despoiled by the draining 
of revenues, which, in the last resort, belong to it, 
and from which the expense of the crusade must 
in large measure be furnished. " The King loves 
you sincerely, as you know," the despatch concludes, 
" and is compassionate to your necessity ; but he 
must guard the liberties and customs entrusted to 
his keeping. He prays you therefore, his very dear 
father in Christ, for God's honour and your own, 
for the removal of scandal, for preserving the de- 
votion of France and its Church, and for the love 
you bear him, to abstain hereafter from such op- 
pressions, which cannot be borne, and to undo the 
wrong which already has been done ; for many have 
been suspended or excommunicated on account of 
these matters." 

The appeal had no effect. The Pope insisted on 
levying a twentieth on the clergy, nominally for 
the succour of Palestine, at the same time that he 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 147 

authorised a tenth to be taken by the King; he 
also demanded a further subsidy for war in Germany 
against the Emperor. The clergy, squeezed so hard, 
became grasping in turn, and pressed every ecclesi- 
astical claim and privilege and exemption, replenish- 
ing themselves at the expense of their neighbours 
and suzerains and vassals. The patience of France 
was exhausted. Magnates and barons assembled in 
November of 1246 to take measures for remedy of 
the evil. They made and sealed a bond of agree- 
ment : that they and their heirs would aid one 
another, and their vassals, and all who joined them, 
to pursue and defend their right against clerics ; that 
the Duke of Burgundy, Count Peter of Brittany, the 
Count of Angouleme,* and the Count of Saint Paul 
should be a board to receive complaints and decide 
what to do to assist in each case ; that every baron 
should contribute for the purposes of the association 
the hundredth part of his revenues year by year, to be 
delivered as the four delegates, or any two of them, 
should direct. 

They also published a manifesto, dwelling in bitter 
terms on the avarice and arrogance of the Church, 
and declaring that they would curtail by sharp punish- 
ment and forfeiture the abuses and encroachment of 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; and would reduce the 
clergy, who had grown fat on the spoils of laymen, 
to primitive poverty ; in which wholesome and holy 
state they might live and meditate and display 
miracles, now so long ceased, for the benefit and sal- 
vation of the working part of the world. The latter 

* He was eldest son of Hugh, Count of La Marche. 



148 Saint Lotiis [1243- 

phrases of their proclamation were thought to reveal 
the hand of the Emperor ; for he had often held 
the same language. But resentment of like griev- 
ances may have vented itself without collusion in a 
similar strain. 

The Pope received the news with surprise and 
anger, having little expected the open revolt of a de- 
vout and generous nation. His first impulse was 
to threaten and thunder. He wrote passionately to 

. ^ the French prelates assembled at Paris in the 
AD 

beginning of next year, exhorting them to 

show a bold front against the barons, who 
were perverted from the piety of their ancestors to 
become persecutors and enslavers of the Church. 
He paraded the bull of Honorius, and ordered the 
Legate to excommunicate all the members of the 
league, and all who joined or aided or abetted them, 
or contributed money, or took part in carrying out 
their judgments. 

His message was coldly received ; for the prelates 
and native clergy of France, no less than the barons, 
felt a great part of the oppressions and evils alleged, 
being themselves sufferers in the first place, while the 
sole benefit was reaped by the papal court and its 
creatures and emissaries, mostly Italian monks. 
Deputies from the episcopal order, the chapters, and 
the body of inferior clergy, accompanied by a royal 
envoy, waited upon Innocent in May, only to form- 
ulate a list of grievances imposed upon France by the 
Apostolic See : Firstly, the usurpation of judgments. 
Secondly, the authority given to Templars and Hospi- 
tallers and other unattached monks dependent on 



1248] PreliminaiHes of the Criisade 149 

Rome, who wandered through the kingdom, suspend- 
ing priests and even the higher clergy, and laying 
excommunication and interdict on both cleric and 
lay. Thirdly, the benefices and pensions bestowed 
out of the French Church on Italians and other 
strangers. Fourthly and fifthly, the intolerable sub- 
sidies levied in the name of assistance to the Latin 
Empire and the Roman Church. Sixthly, the com- 
missioning of private legates and nuncios to exact 
money throughout the realm. 

Innocent answered, denying or lessening some 
grievances and promising redress of others ; but 
did not satisfy the deputies, who went away angry. 
He had then to receive the envoys of the barons' 
league, a prospect which gave him no pleasure. 
For their tone was high and unsubmissive ; and the 
King himself had adhered to them openly and afifixed 
his seal to their bond, and gave earnest of his policy 
by forbidding the French prelates, on pain of forfeit- 
ing their lands, to comply with the requisitions of a 
fresh horde of Franciscan and Dominican friars which 
the Pope had let loose. 

Many Cardinals began to fear the heat and burden 
of the day ; to suggest reconciliation with the 
Emperor, and say that in deposing him the Council 
had been too hasty and inconsiderate. Innocent 
was subject to no such weak mood. But to fulminate 
against France was idle. For the bolts of the Church, 
though dreaded, were mostly of moral power, and 
lost their force and effect unless the use was approved, 
or at least tolerated, by the general conscience. 
That being hostile, they were unequal weapons 



150 Saint Louis [1243- 

against forfeiture, imprisonment, and the other 
means of coercion which belong to secular rulers. 
He was compelled, therefore, to temporise ; to yield 
in some particulars; and to detach individuals from 
the league by giving them benefices for their kins- 
men and other favours. In this way the sore was 
skinned over, but not healed ; it rankled under- 
neath, and broke out from time to time into fresh 
inflammation. 

Louis called a Parliament at Paris in mid-Lent to 
settle the affairs of the kingdom, in which he declared 

A^ his resolution to start within a year from the 
D 

coming Nativity of Saint John Baptist, un- 
less hindered by some unforeseen and una- 
voidable accident. He took a solemn public oath to 
that effect, as did all the crusaders, and caused the 
barons to swear fealty to his infant son, in case any 
mishap should arrive. He named his mother to be 
Regent and Governess of the realm during his ab- 
sence. 

A curious incident which happened during the 
session of this Parliament has been related by an 
eye-witness. Coming out of chapel one day, the 
King found three corpses laid out on the steps of 
the courtyard, and a prisoner guarded by men-at- 
arms. Inquiring of the Provost of Paris what was 
the matter, he was told that the dead men were 
three of his sergeants, who used to rob people in 
unfrequented streets. Last night they attacked and 
stripped a clerk, who was the prisoner. He ran to 
his lodgings, fetched his crossbow and sword, over- 
took the robbers, and, bidding them stand, shot one 



1248] Prelifninaries of the Critsade 151 

through the heart. The other two fled ; but the 
clerk pursued and cut off the leg of one as he was 
climbing through the hedge of a garden ; afterwards 
he caught the other, just escaping into a strange 
house, and split his head in two with a single blow 
of his sword. Then, calling the neighbours to wit- 
ness what he had done, he went to the King's prison 
and gave himself up. " And I have brought him 
here, Sire," ended the Provost, " that you may do 
your will on him." The King regarded the pris- 
oner. " Sir Clerk," said he, " your prowess is wasted 
in a priest. I will give you my wages, and you shall 
come with me oversea." Then turning to the by- 
standers he added : "And by this I would have you 
see that I wish my people to know that I Avill not 
uphold them in any wickedness." The crowd ap- 
plauded with shouts, desiring the King's long life 
and safe return. 

Later in the year, wishing to clear his conscience 
of other matters before undertaking the holy war, 
Louis ordered his bailiffs throughout the country to 
proclaim by crier that if any man had been treated 
unjustly by royal ofificers in the way of taxation or 
requisition, he should make complaint and adduce 
proof, when right would be done. He despatched 
also a number of friars to all parts, to inquire if the 
people anywhere suffered wTong from his seneschals 
or others in authority, with a view to giving redress. 
About the same time the Viscount of Beziers made 
a treaty with the King, formally renouncing the ter- 
ritories in Languedoc which, having been conquered 
from his father, had passed to the Crown. 



152 Saint Louis [1243- 

Richard of Cornwall, visiting France, endeavoured 
to profit by the occasion, urging that since restitu- 
tion was offered to all, the lost provinces also should 
be restored to England. The barons of the council 
scoffed at the thought, answering, with especial refer- 
ence to Normandy, that an undisturbed possession 
of forty years could not be overridden by a claim 
which had never, during that time, been enforced. 
But Richard's arguments troubled Louis, until he 
was satisfied by the Norman bishops that his right 
was superior to that of the English King, who 
had been deprived by the regular judgment of his 
peers. 

Many English took vows this year, with the inten- 
tion of accompanying the crusade ; among whom 
were the Bishop of Worcester and William of Salis- 
bury. Haco, King of Norway, also having put on 
the cross, was invited by Louis to join his expedi- 
tion, but declined, saying that his people would 
certainly quarrel with the French, as both nations 
were haughty and headstrong in temper. He con- 
tented himself with obtaining letters from the King, 
bidding the coasts of France assist his voyage, which 
was never begun. 

Meanwhile, as Pope and Emperor could not be 

reconciled, Louis kept on friendly terms with both, 

favouring each side in the maintenance of its posi- 

tion, but not in aggression upon the other. 

' He wrote to the Emperor in February on 

the subject of his crusade. The style of the 

despatch is significant ; for it seems to go beyond 

the ordinary forms of compliment and honour, at a 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crusade 153 

time when the Pope was obstinate to insist on Fred- 
erick's deposition, and refused to allow his royal or 
imperial titles. It is prefaced, " To his most excel- 
lent and very dear friend, Frederick, by the grace 
of God illustrious and ever august Emperor of the 
Romans, King of Jerusalem and of Sicily, Louis, 
by the same grace King of the French, greeting 
and sincere love." The Emperor is thanked for 
facilities given to draw supplies from his dominions, 
and is assured that he need have no anxiety that the 
rights of the kingdom of Jerusalem will not be 
guarded in respect of any conquests made by the 
Christians. It is promised that the privileges of ex- 
port, which he has granted to the crusaders, shall 
not be abused to furnish his enemies, if the King 
can prevent it. As regards renewal of the treaty 
between France and the Empire, the bearer of the 
letter is entrusted with a secret verbal answer. 

Shortly after this, Frederick, who had for long 
been standing on his defence, found himself able to 
resume the attack, the face of his fortunes having 
been changed for the better by a victory of Conrad 
in Germany over Henry of Thuringia, who died im- 
mediately afterwards. The Emperor emerged from 
Southern Italy with a numerous army, declaring his 
intention to march to Lyons, and, having justified 
himself of the charges on which he had been con- 
demned, to confer with his adherents in those parts 
and return honourably into Germany. Innocent 
and the Cardinals were filled with alarm, and hastened 
to stir up trouble in Lombardy. Louis on his part, 
assembling a strong force, prepared to go to Lyons, 



154 Saint Louis [1243- 

accompanied by the Queen-mother, to take share in 
the meeting, lest the Holy Father should be over- 
borne by violence and arms. But Frederick was 
recalled from the foot of the mountains by the 
revolt of Parma, which burst out behind him, fo- 
mented by papal subsidies ; and Innocent, who 
desired to see neither King nor Emperor with an 
army at their back, sent letters to Louis and Blanche, 
effusive of commendation and thanks, and begging 
them not to come until he summoned. Mean- 
while he turned their good will to account by writ- 
ing to his partisans that Louis had gathered a great 
army in order to facilitate the election of a new king 
of the Romans ; for that was the chief object of pa- 
pal policy at the moment. It was attained in the 
autumn, William, Count of Holland, being 
elected by the German princes, who contin- 
ued to maintain the war against Conrad, 
while Frederick strove with but moderate fortune to 
crush the Lombard rebels. 

As the time of the King's passage approached, a 
great fleet of ships was fitted and provisioned in the 
harbour of Aigues Mortes. Two attempts were 
made at the last to shake his purpose, — the first by 
his mother and the aged Bishop of Paris, supported 
by many barons. They represented the unquiet 
state of Europe and the peril of the realm during his 
absence. Blanche, who trembled lest her son's en- 
feebled health should fail beneath the voyage and 
campaign, added entreaty to counsel, begging him, 
by the love and obedience he owed her, at least not 
to pass the seas himself, though, he sent his forces. 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crttsade 155 

His vows were not binding, they urged ; and the 
Pope would give dispensation, for they were taken 
in the height of fever, when he was not master of his 
mind. Louis appeared to be moved : " You pretend 
that I took the cross in delirium," said he. " Well, 
then, I do as you wish : Lord Bishop, I return it to 
you," and tore the sacred sign from his shoulder. 
They began to congratulate themselves till he spoke 
again. " I am not delirious now at any rate. Give 
me back my cross. God knows, food shall not enter 
my mouth till I am marked with it anew." All felt 
that further argument was useless against such reso- 
lution. " It is the finger of God," they said. 

The other temptation came from the Pope, who 
desired to keep a powerful protector at hand, in case 
the Emperor's arms should prevail too far. He 
begged the King to defer his voyage until it was 
seen how God would deal with Frederick ; adding 
insidiously that he need not travel oversea to fight 
for the Faith, since there were many heretics in 
Italy. " But he laboured in vain," writes a monk of 
his court, " for he could not divert the King from 
his desire of crossing." 

In the first half of the year Louis settled his 
outstanding affairs, an example followed by 

the other crusaders. He made large dona- ' ' 

... 1 . . , . 1240 

tions to religious houses in return for then- 
prayers : he also founded and endowed, jointly with 
his mother, a Cistercian nunnery at Melun 
in the name of Our Lady of the Lily. On 
the Friday after Pentecost he received the 
oriflamme of France and the pilgrim's stafT and wallet 



156 Saint Louis [1243- 

from the hands of the Legate Odo, in the church of 
Saint Denis, and thence returning to Notre Dame 
heard mass ; after which he left Paris, not with 
military pomp, but barefooted, in pilgrim's habit, 
and came, accompanied by a vast multitude, to the 
abbey of Saint Anthony outside the city. An eye- 
witness, an Italian monk, has described the scene. 
The King, he says, was thin and haggard, rather 
tall, with the face of an angel. He seemed more like 
a monk than a soldier. Many of the French monks 
wept, crowding to see him like women. He sat in 
the dust on the ground, while his brothers looked 
about for benches and stools. 

After commending himself to the prayers of the 
abbey, and taking leave of the people, who flocked 
after him, he mounted horse and rode to Corbeil, 
the first stage of his journey. There he formally 
handed over to his mother the government of the 
realm with all its powers and prerogatives. Blanche 
accompanied him some further distance, and on 
parting was agonised with grief, foreboding that 
they would not meet again. " I had rather 
be cut in two," she cried in her sorrow ; " for you 
have been the best son to me that ever mother 
had." 

The King proceeded through Burgundy to Lyons, 
where he visited the Pope, whom he implored to 
relax his severity towards Frederick, if for no other 
reason, at least for the help and advancement of the 
crusade. But Innocent shewed a stern, forbidding 
face to his personal entreaties, and answered after- 
wards formally in writing, that, though desiring peace, 




mm 

GOLD CLASP OF SAINT LOUIS. 



1248] Preliminaries of the Crtisade 157 

he would never admit any overtures which did not 

most fully vindicate the honour of the 

Church, and provide for the safety of those -^ 

who had adhered to her party. He added ' L 

1-1 1248 
that he was fixed to accept no treaty which 

did not absolutely exclude Frederick and all his 
family from the Imperial throne. Louis abandoned 
his mediation sadly, and dismissed the ambassadors 
whom the Emperor, though himself distrusting all 
hope of peace, had sent at his request. He declared 
that the fault would be the Pope's if impediment 
came to the crusade, and begged him to guard 
France as the apple of his eye and the bulwark of 
Christendom. Innocent promised willingly to de- 
fend it with all his might against Frederick or the 
English King, should either attack, and to send a 
special nuncio to the latter forbidding him to com- 
mit any act of hostility during the crusade ; in which 
he was as good as his word. Louis then confessed 
himself to the Pope, and having received absolution 
and blessing continued his journey down the Rhone. 
On the way he came to the castle of Roche de Glui, 
the stronghold of a robber lord called Roger, who 
barred the passage of the river and plundered pil- 
grims and merchants. This he besieged, took, and 
dismantled, but restored it to the owner, on condi- 
tion of levying no more unjust tolls. At Avignon 
there was a brawl between crusaders and citizens, 
who, enraged by reproaches of heresy cast in their 
teeth, and remembering old quarrels, set on and slew 
a number of soldiers in the narrow streets. Certain 
barons begged the King to permit the town to be 



158 Saint Loids [1243-1248] 

sacked, reminding him of the obstinate and deadly 
resistance made against his father. But he checked 
their anger, refusing to mix a private revenge with 
his holy enterprise. 

Reaching Aigues Mortes he embarked on the 

morrow of Saint Bartholomew, together with the 

Queen, who refused to stay behind, his 

^ brothers of Artois and Anjou, the Legate, 
and the flower of his army. They filled 
thirty-eight great ships, besides those which carried 
servants, horses, and provisions. Some thousands of 
less efficient troops were left for want of transport. 
After two days, the wind blowing fair, the fleet set 
sail for Cyprus, where the King had named the 
rendezvous of his forces. 










ROBERT, COUNT OF ARTOIS 




WILLIAM LONQSWORD 



CHAPTER VII 

THE CRUSADE IN EGYPT 
I248-1250 

AT this time the Mohammedan was not more 
united than the Christian world. The empire 
of Saladin had not been preserved by his 
successors : his dominions were divided among differ- 
ent branches of his family, who spent their strengtli 
in mutual war and aggression. The principal stem, 
in virtue of possessions but not of birth, ruled at 
Cairo and disputed Syria with their kinsmen of 
Damascus and Aleppo. The present Sultan of this 
line, Saleh Nodgemeddin Ayoub, grandnephew of 
Saladin, was he who invited the aid of the Khoras- 
mians. He had driven his uncle, Saleh Ismael, from 
Damascus, and carried his conquests as far north- 
wards as Emessa, which his armies were besieging, 
the place being held for Naser Saladin of Aleppo, 
Saladin's great-grandson. The news of the approach- 
ing crusade induced him to seek a truce and alliance 
against the common enemy; in this he was backed 
by the Caliph of Bagdad, the titular head of Islam, 
who exhorted the princes of his faith to reconcile 
themselves for the destruction of the Christians. 



159 



i6o Saint Louis 



[1248- 



It had become a maxim of Western policy that the 
Saracen power should be assailed at its source and 
Palestine conquered in Egypt. But as such an enter- 
prise demanded resources of the first order, and pro- 
mised more danger than immediate profit, the weaker 
crusades of the last thirty years had chosen another 
mark, and preferred to operate toward strengthen- 
ing and extending the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. 
Their endeavours had left that state reduced to the 
extremity of weakness, deprived of its capital, and 
dependent on the mercy of the Egyptian Sultan, 
who could always seize the favourable moment of the 
retirement of foreign succours to overrun the country 
with irresistible numbers. The present expedition 
was designed for the thorough subdual of Egypt, 
which having been conquered, it would be easy to 
make and maintain an advantageous settlement in 
Syria. The immediate distress of Palestine after the 
battle of Gaza had already been relieved. For the 
Khorasmians, while they besieged Emessathe follow- 
A pw ^'^S year, were caught in an ambush by the 
' ' Emir of that place, and twenty-five thousand 
of them cut to pieces. The rest, deserted by 
the Egyptians, who found them troublesome allies, 
soon broke up, and were slaughtered in detail by the 
people of the country : so that the whole horde was 
exterminated within three years from its entry. Nor 
did the Sultan of Egypt in his march to Damascus 
molest the Christian fortresses of the coast. 

The French fleet made the harbour of Limesson 
in Cyprus after one week's voyage, without mishap, 
save the loss of one vessel on a shoal. Louis would 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt i6i 

have wished to sail straight to Egypt ; but the diffi- 
culty of assembling and transporting so great an army 
and its stores in a single convoy compelled him to 
winter in the island, which afforded a friendly base 
for gathering his forces and descending on the enemy 
in full strength. Established there, his numbers 
were quickly swollen by bodies of crusaders who 
kept arriving in their own vessels, both from France 
and from other parts of Europe. The King of 
Cyprus, Avho was of the French family of Lusignan, 
himself took the cross, with most of his nobility. 

An immense quantity of supplies had been brought 
together during two years. The sea-shore was cov- 
ered with barrels of wine, says the historian of the 
crusade, stacked on one another to the height of 
barns ; and the fields with vast ricks of corn, like 
green mountains, as the top layers sprouted after 
the rains. Great treasure of money also had been 
collected, from which many crusading nobles received 
pensions to support themselves and their followers ; 
and a store of ploughs, hoes, and other instruments 
of tillage, as if for a permanent settlement in the 
country of the Infidels. During the winter further 
convoys of provisions were procured from the Vene- 
tians and the Emperor. 

There were evils, however, to set against the ad- 
vantages of winter quarters. Time was given to the 
Sultan to become aware of his danger, to patch up 
a truce with Aleppo, and to withdraw himself and 
his army from Damascus into Egypt. The change 
of climate and of living bred sickness among the cru- 
saders, which carried off some considerable persons, 



1 62 Saint Louis [1248' 

among them the Count of Dreux, Archambaud 
of Bourbon, and Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, and a 
number of lower rank. The Queen and the Count 
of Anjou fell ill, but recovered. 

The King was much occupied in settling and re- 
straining the old feuds and mutual jealousy of the 
Christians, which had hampered so many previous 
crusades. He was able to reconcile for a time the 
Templars with the Hospitallers ; the Greek with the 
Latin Church in Cyprus; and, through his envoys, 
the Prince of Antioch with the King of Armenia. 
He had to check by force some unruly barons, who 
planned to seize Genoese ships and convey them- 
selves into Palestine. He sent a mission to Acre, to 
quell the strife between the Genoese and the Pisans, 
who were fighting for the town and would not 
send the ships and sailors required for transport. 

At the end of the year a Tartar embassy arrived in 
Cyprus. The ambassadors, named Saphadin, 
* Mephat, David, and Mark, were believed 
to come from the great Khan of Tartary 
himself, grandson of Gengis. In truth they appear 
to have been sent by one of his viceroys, governing 
in Western Persia, who had received the report of 
the French expedition from the alarm of his Moham- 
medan neighbours. The missionary zeal of travel- 
hng monks despatched by the Pope had already 
penetrated the heart of Tartary, and spread some 
dim knowledge of the West among the visited na- 
tions. They found in their wanderings toleration 
and even favour, and in some parts traces and rem- 
nants of ancient Christian worship. From this, wild 



1250] The Crusade m Egypt 163 

hopes had been drawn of a great conversion. The 
arrival of the envoys, themselves Nestorian Christ- 
ians, fitted the mood of the time, and excited high 
interest and expectation, which they nourished by 
their boasts. They declared that the Khan had 
been baptised and was about to besiege Bagdad with 
a great army, and desired the friendship of the King 
of France, to prevent the Sultan of Egypt from 
sending help. The Tartars, they said, had come 
from a country forty weeks' travel from their pre- 
sent abode, living during the journey in tents and on 
horseback. They had conquered Prester John, King 
of India, whose daughter was the Khan's mother 
and a baptised Christian. 

Their stories of the power and friendliness of 
their masters were confirmed by a letter from the 
Constable of Armenia to the King of Cyprus about 
the same time. 

" AVe have seen many cities ruined by them," he wrote, 
" so rich and great as no man can imagine, some of them 
three days' journey in compass. We have seen also more 
than a hundred great mounds, made by the Tartars out 
of the bones of those they have slain. We have trav- 
elled day and night for eight months without reaching 
the middle of their country. When the last Khan died 
it took five years for their chiefs and barons to assemble 
for his son's election. This is the country from which 
the three Kings came. They are Christians, and we have 
seen pictures of Christ in their churches, and also of 
the three Kings offering myrrh and frankincense." 

Louis and his council, having heard the envoys, 



164 Saint Loztis [1248- 

decided to send an embassy in return to the Khan 
and to his viceroy, with letters and presents. Three 
friars were chosen for the mission. The King gave 
them a tent in the form of a chapel, made of rich 
scarlet cloth, on the sides of which he caused to be 
embroidered pictures representing the Annunciation 
and the Passion of Christ. This was a gift to the 
Khan, by which it was hoped his belief might be in- 
creased and encouraged. The Legate wrote an 
epistle to the Tartars, exhorting them to hold fast by 
the orthodox faith, to acknowledge the supremacy 
of Rome and the vicarship of the Pope, to beware 
of schism, and to abide by the decrees of the first 
four general Councils. The embassy was absent 
two years ; its result and return will be narrated in 
the proper place. 

Another negotiation was less favourably viewed, 
which the Grand Master of the Templars attempted 
to set on foot with the Sultan of Egypt. The fresh, 
unbroken spirit of the crusaders abhorred the idea 
of accommodation with the Infidel, and suspected 
the loyalty of the military orders, whom long use 
and intercourse in the East had made careless, and 
who were held to be governed by private tradition 
and interest more than by Christian zeal. The sug- 
gested treaty was no sooner heard of than rejected, 
with sharp reproaches against the lukewarmness of 
the Grand Master. 

When spring approached, an immense 

* ■ number of vessels having been procured from 

1240 ,11 

every quarter, stores were got on board and 

all made ready for the voyage. The army em- 



1250] The CriLsade in Egypt 165 

barked on Ascension Day, but was held back by 
unfavourable winds till Friday of the follow- 
ing week. Then the King and Queen entered ^. 

their ship in the harbour of Limesson. The 
fleet covered the sea with its sails, as far as eye could 
reach, being eighteen hundred vessels in all, of which 
a hundred and twenty were of the largest size. 
Nearly three thousand knights were on board, with 
their full equipage of followers, besides a great num- 
ber of auxiliaries. 

Putting out to sea, they were dispersed the next 
day by a violent storm, and many driven to the 
Syrian coast. The King and about a quarter of his 
navy made back into Limesson, where they waited 
a week for the rest. He was joined there by the 
Duke of Burgundy and the Prince of Morea, coming 
from Greece. On Trinity Sunday, the wind 

having fallen, and most of the fleet come in, ^, 

. 30th 

they resumed their voyage and held a course 

for Damietta, a fortified town situated on a mouth 
of the Nile and reputed the key of Egypt. 

Land was sighted on the following Friday. The 
secret of their destination had been so well kept 
that many of the crusaders themselves believed they 
were going to Alexandria ; an error which was shared 
by the Saracens, who sent part of their forces to pro- 
tect that place. There was some confusion, as the 
look-out of each vessel in turn reported that they 
were off Damietta. The sea was calm, and the fleet 
drew together and stood in to shore. Louis encour- 
aged the crew of his own ship. 

" The will of God has sent us here. I am not King of 



1 66 Saint Louis [1248- 

France ; I am not Holy Church. You, all of you, are 
King and Church. I am but one man, whose life, if God 
pleases, will be spent like another's. We are safe in any 
event ; either we shall conquer and increase God's glory 
and the honour of France, or we shall fall as martyrs. 
It is madness to think that the Lord has raised me up in 
vain." 

As they came on, four galleys of the Saracens ran 
out to reconnoitre, three of which, advancing too far, 
w^ere surrounded and sunk. The Infidel horsemen 
lined the shore and the river bank, goodly men to 
see, in rich armour with gold ornaments, which glit- 
tered in the sun. They made a loud and terrible 
noise with horns and cymbals. A hasty council was 
assembled on board the King's ship. Some were for 
waiting till those rejoined whom the storm or the 
voyage had scattered ; but Louis refused, saying that 
the enemy would recover heart, and that he would 
not risk lying in the open roadstead. It was decided 
to anchor for the night and attack the next day. 

Early in the morning the fleet weighed anchor and 
bore down on the western bank of the Nile. The 
greater vessels could not come close in, owing to the 
shelving sands, and the French took to their boats. 
There was a race to shore. Among the first rowed 
a pinnace bearing the standard of Saint Denis, fol- 
lowed by another with the King and the Legate, who 
carried a great processional cross in his arms. No 
sooner had the oriflamme touched land, than Louis 
leaped into the water up to his armpits and waded 
ashore, shield round neck, helm on head, and sword 
in hand, and would have rushed on the Saracens 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 167 

had not his followers held him back. A few had 
landed already, and others were coming up, plung- 
ing into the sea as their boats could not approach. 
The Count of Jaffa, whose galley was manned by 
three hundred rowers, drove at full speed right on 
the beach, with pennons displayed and kettledrums 
playing. 

Fixing the points of their shields in the ground 
and setting their lances before them like pikes, the 
Christians formed an impenetrable hedge against the 
furious assaults of the Saracen cavalry. The enemy 
gave way, unable to break through and distressed by 
flights of arrows from the boats. Soon greater num- 
bers gained the shore and, their horses having now 
been landed, the crusaders mounted and charged. 
The Infidels did not wait to meet them, but turned 
and fled across the river into Damietta, breaking 
a few arches of the bridge behind them. This, 
and fear of an ambush, restrained the victors from 
pursuit. While they were fighting, a number of 
Christian slaves and captives burst out of the un- 
guarded city, and came running to their compa- 
triots with shouts of joy. Being acquainted with 
the landing-places and the banks of the river, they 
helped the quick disembarkation of the invaders, 
which w^as carried out in the remaining hours of the 
day ; and the whole French army bivouacked along 
the shore. 

Damietta was strong by art and nature, having a 
triple circuit of walls, bastioned with towers, on the 
land side, and a double line of similar fortification 
facing the river, which itself was a formidable barrier. 



1 68 Saint Louis 



[1248- 



The place had stood against the crusaders thirty 
years before through a five-months' siege, and had 
been reduced in the end by famine. But this time 
the Saracens did not attempt to hold it. They 
were weakened and much disheartened by the battle 
on the sands ; but chiefly a report that the Sultan 
was dead discouraged them. He had been carried 
from Damascus in a litter, sick of a grievous ulcer in 
the thigh, produced, it was said, by a poisoned car- 
pet, and was lying in extremity at Achmon. They 
had sent him word of the enemy's arrival three 
times by carrier-pigeon, but got no reply. This 
confirmed the rumour. The governor, Fakareddin, 
and the Mamelukes who were the strength of the 
garrison, either struck with panic, or through fear 
that their interest might be neglected if a new 
Government were set up without them, resolved to 
abandon Damietta ; which they did the same night, 
by land and river, in great disorder, after cutting the 
throats of most of their prisoners and setting fire to 
the bazaars. A great part of the Mohammedan 
population followed them. A few Christian captives 
who escaped massacre checked the flames, and in 
the morning sent out messengers to the French, who 
were watching the town, having seen that something 
was wrong. 

So soon as the truth of their news was ascertained 
the King ordered a Te Deum to be chanted through 
his army, and the bridge, which was only slightly 
damaged, to be repaired. The town was occupied 
at once, the streets cleansed of dead, and the re- 
mains of the fire extinguished. All this was done 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 169 

by three o'clock in the afternoon, when the King, 
the Legate, and the barons rode into Damietta, 
fasting and in procession. They went to the chief 
mosque, which had been formerly a Christian church. 
It was purified and sprinkled with holy water, and 
there the Legate led the Te Deuni a second time, 
while the crusaders followed with their voices, many 
weeping for joy and zeal. Afterwards mass was 
solemnly celebrated. Thus Damietta fell to the 
Christians, with the loss of very few soldiers and 
only one of importance, the old Count of La Marche, 
who, smarting under the reproaches and continual 
dishonour which he had to endure from many, 
attacked the enemy furiously at landing, like a man 
careless of life, and received severe wounds, of which 
he died shortly afterwards. 

A vast quantity of food, arms and military engines, 
clothing, gold and silver vessels, and furniture of all 
sorts was found in the city. By advice of his coun- 
cil the King claimed all the corn and other victuals 
for provisioning the army, and bade the rest of the 
spoil be taken to the quarters of the Legate for 
distribution. But all that was brought in amounted 
to no more than the value of six thousand pounds ; 
and though this was divided there were loud mur- 
murs because the stores of food were withheld ; for 
it was the good old custom of the crusades, men 
said, that when a town was taken one third only of 
all it contained should go to the King, and two 
thirds to the pilgrims that followed him. 

It was decided to rest at Damietta for the present, 
because the flood-time of the Nile was approaching. 



170 Saint Louis [1248~ 

when the country would become impassable, as for- 
mer crusaders had found to their cost. Stores were 
landed from the fleet. The Queen and her ladies, 
with the Legate, were lodged in the town, which was 
occupied also by a force of five hundred knights: 
the King and the rest of the army pitched a camp 
outside. 

Meanwhile the Sultan had rallied from his illness, 
had hanged the captains of the deserting garrison, 
and was gathering troops at Mansourah, a strong 
position on the river bank, lying half-way between 
Damietta and Cairo. He sent to offer a general 
battle on the morrow of Saint John Baptist ; but 
Louis replied that he would pursue the quarrel, not 
on this day or that, but every day, until the Sultan 
turned from his errors. The Infidels did not venture 
to attack in force, but watched and harassed the army 
as occasion offered, cutting off stragglers and forag- 
ing parties, or alarming the tents with a sudden 
swoop. The swiftness and mobility of their light 
Bedouin horsemen gave them the advantage in this 
method of fighting over the heavily armed crusaders. 
The same guerilla warriors crept by night into the 
camp, waiting till the watch had passed, which they 
knew by the clank of arms and trampling of horses, 
and killed men as they slept, carrying off their heads, 
for each of which the Sultan paid a golden bezant. 
To prevent this the King ordered the watch to be 
increased and to go their rounds on foot instead of 
on horseback. At a later time the camp was fortified 
with deep ditches guarded by crossbowmen, who 
kept the hostile cavalry at a distance. 



1250] The Crztsade in Egypt 171 

The army swelled in numbers, as the remnant of 
the voyagers came in and fresh succours arrived from 
Syria and Greece and Europe. Among others came 
William Longsword of Salisbury, from England, with 
two hundred knights. But the stay at Damietta 
was fruitful of damage to the expedition. Prolonged 
inaction, which is the severest test even of veteran 
armies, corrupted the feudal militia like an insidious 
disease. The bonds of discipline, always loose, were 
relaxed further, and the camp was filled with dis- 
orders and riotous living. The great nobles wasted 
their substance in outrageous feasting ; the royal of- 
ficers oppressed the merchants of the place, so that 
the noise of their extortions prevented many from 
coming; the common soldiers were given up to de- 
bauchery, establishing their brothels within a stone's 
throw of the King's tent. Louis knew of these ex- 
cesses, and resented but was unable to check them, 
though some offenders felt the weight of his displeas- 
ure after the war. The same weakness of the crusad- 
ers appeared in their behaviour toward the enemy. 
In spite of the strictest prohibition of private excur- 
sions and attacks, a troop of Saracens appearing be- 
fore the lines could always draw a headlong charge of 
some knight or noble, burning with zeal and eager to 
illustrate his prowess. " I would not keep a thou- 
sand such, since they will not obey my orders," the 
King was stung into saying, when he heard of 
the death of Walter Chastillon, who in this way had 
galloped fully armed from his tent upon an approach- 
ing body of Infidels. 

Constant quarrels between the French and English 



172 Saint Louis [1248- 

disturbed the camp, as one side complained of greed 
and selfishness and the other of interference and 
insult ; the English, according to their national char- 
acter, having too little regard for the interests, and 
the French for the feelings, of others. Louis tried to 
smooth the trouble and to induce his own people 
to forbear, but in vain ; while his brother of Artois, 
a desperate hothead, was foremost in the feud. 
Matters came to a head when William Longsword, 
having led out a private unauthorised foray and 
captured a rich caravan bound for Alexandria, was 
compelled by the Count of Artois to give up his 
booty.' He demanded redress from the King, who 
answered soothingly, but professed himself unable to 
do anything in face of his barons. Thereupon 
William, upbraiding him bitterly, went off with his 
followers and sailed to Acre. 

As autumn drew on, the King, having no news, be- 
came anxious about the Count of Poitiers, who was 
bringing the arriere-ban of France. A weekly pro- 
cession was ordered for his safety, which proved so 
. ^ efficacious that he reached Damietta before 
the third Saturday, after escaping a great 
storm. This was in the end of October. He 
brought money as well as men, and a supply of corn 
obtained from the Emperor. The expected rein- 
forcement having arrived, and the flood decreasing, 
a great council of the army was held to settle the 
plan of campaign. Peter of Brittany and most of 
the barons were for attacking Alexandria, where was 
a fine harbour ; but the Count of Artois advocated 
a march on Cairo, the capital. " If we would kill 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 173 

the serpent," he urged, " we must crush its head." 
His advice was followed, the more readily as the 
governor of Cairo, whose brother the Sultan had 
put to death for his share in abandoning Damietta, 
was making offers to betray his trust. William 
Longsword was called back from Acre ; the . _ 
Queen and the Legate were left in Damietta / 

with a strong garrison ; and the army began 
to move about the beginning of Advent, full of hope 
and courage. 

They followed the eastern bank of the Nile, ac- 
companied by a convoy of boats carrying supplies. 
The country was intersected by canals and water- 
courses and difficult for the passage of a large force. 
The first obstacle of this kind was crossed by dam- 
ming its bed, in the face of five hundred horse of 
the Saracens, whom the Templars, being in the van, 
charged, contrary to orders, and destroyed. Never- 
theless the advance was of extreme slowness, and a 
month had passed when they arrived at Mansourah, 
and found the way stopped by a deep and broad 
arm of the Nile, called Tafnis or Ashmoun, flowing 
between them and the town, where lay the main In- 
fidel army prepared to dispute the crossing. 

The Sultan Saleh was already dead, having been 
carried off by his malady a week after the Christians 
left Damietta. His eldest son, Moadham Turan 
Shah, was in Mesopotamia at the time, on the far- 
thest confines of the empire, whither his father's 
jealousy had removed him. Saleh had sent for him 
when he perceived the end approaching, and had or- 
dered his decease to be concealed until the arrival 



174 Saint Louis [1248- 

of his successor. The command was well obeyed. 
His favourite concubine, Sajareldor, a woman of ex- 
traordinary ability and character, such as the East 
sometimes produces, by a sort of miracle, out of the 
unfavourable surroundings which enervate a whole 
sex, took the reins of government ; and, in alliance 
with the Emir Fakareddin, whom age, rank, and 
military reputation made the most powerful subject 
of Egypt, imposed her authority and was recognised 
as regent by the captains of the Mamelukes, to whom 
alone the Sultan's death was avowed. 

In this crisis of affairs the Saracens would have 
been glad to be quit of their enemy, and it appears 
that terms were proposed to the crusaders, to the 
effect that they should give up Damietta and receive 
instead the kingdom of Jerusalem and the release 
of all captives. Louis was easily persuaded to re- 
ject such a peace, which was obnoxious both to the 
fanatic zeal of the Count of Artois and to the policy 
of the Legate. The first, inflated with victory, 
aimed at the total overthrow of Egyptian power; 
the other considered rightly that it was a dear bar- 
gain which gave them, in exchange for their present 
conquest and future hopes, nothing but the nominal 
possession of Palestine, which the Sultan could re- 
duce again with ease if his strength at home was 
left unimpaired. Both sides, therefore, turned to the 
arbitrament of arms, the Christians flushed with 
achievement and confident of success, the Lifidels 
preparing to fight no longer for a distant province, 
but for the very heart and life of their empire. 

The tactics of the crusaders were of the simplest 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 1 75 

kind, and no plan suggested itself to them, having 
arrived before Mansourah, but to repeat their former 
device and throw a mole across the Tafnis. But 
this undertaking, difficult in itself from the breadth 
and volume of the stream, became impossible in 
face of a numerous and active enemy, vi^ell versed 
in all the arts of war and greatly superior in engines. 
To protect the building of the mole two cat-castles, 
as they were called, were constructed. These were 
covered galleries ending in towers armed with arba- 
lests throwing quarrels. They were pushed for- 
ward to the water's edge, and men working under 
their shelter heaved earth and other materials into 
the river. On the other side the Saracens ranged 
sixteen large catapults, which, though they could not 
break the cat-castles, made the approaches danger- 
ous, and swept a wide space between the Tafnis and 
the Nile. They also sent bodies of horse across the 
Tafnis higher up, to cut off convoys and assault 
the enemy's encampment. And, as the mole ad- 
vanced, they dug out the opposite bank, widening 
the stream, so that the Christians saw the labour 
of three weeks undone in a single day. The In- 
fidels were much encouraged by their first successes, 
and Fakareddin boasted that before the month was 
out he would eat in the French King's tent. 

As the operations seemed likely to be prolonged, 
Louis took measures to secure his camp, closing it 
with a ditch on the further side between the two 
rivers. He himself, with the Count of Anjou, 
guarded the southern front towards Cairo ; the Count 
of Poitiers took the northern towards Damietta; 



176 Saint Louis [1248- 

the Count of Artois was charged with the protec- 
tion of the engines. By this array the incursions 
of the enemy were checked, and an attack which 
they were emboldened to deliver, having crossed the 
river in great force, was defeated with slaughter. 
They saved themselves by retiring within range of 
their catapults, where the victors did not venture to 
follow. 

The mole made little progress, but the King and 
the barons persisted in the attempt, till the Saracens 
brought up a new and formidable engine which threw 
Greek fire. The missile flew through the air with a 
noise like thunder, says the historian of the crusade. 
It was the size of a barrel, with a tail of fire, making 
night like day. The Christians were amazed and 
helpless before so terrible a weapon. They fell on 
their knees each time the Saracens shot, and prayed 
to be delivered from peril. The fire was directed 
against the cat-castles ; at first only by night ; pre- 
sently by day, when a hail of stones from the cata- 
pults could prevent any effort to extinguish the 
flames. In this way one of the cat-castles was burned 
at the first attempt, to the rage and despair of the 
Count of Anjou, who was guarding it. 

The King then changed his plan, resolving to 
bridge the river at once before worse happened, 
using the boats of the army. When the Count of 
Anjou's turn of command came round — - for this 
opportunity was given him of retrieving his disaster 
— the remaining cat-castle was run out suddenly to 
the end of the mole, to protect the work. But the 
Saracens were ready, and, concentrating their shot on 



1250] 



The Crusade in Egypt 177 



the mole speedily cleared it of men, then launched 
Greek fire against the cat-castle and reduced it to 
ashes. The Christian army saw its destruction with 
joy ; so much did they dread the danger to which 
its defence had lately exposed them. 

It was now February. The crusaders were no 
nearer crossing the Tafnis than when they 
arrived on its bank, and in a council of 

r 1 1 1 1250 

war the barons confessed themselves at a 
standstill. Then Humbert of Beaujeu, the Con- 
stable, said that certain Bedouins had offered for 
five hundred bezants to show him a ford passable by 
horsemen. The King snatched at the chance, and 
ordered the price to be paid. He left the Duke of 
Burgundy with the footmen and the lords of Pal- 
estine to guard the camp, and, taking the whole 
strength of his cavalry, marched by night to 
the ford. It lay about four miles down- ' 

stream, and proved a slippery and dangerous 
crossing, with high, crumbling banks, but watched 
only by a few hundreds of the enemy, who fled 
without offering resistance. The van was given to 
the Templars, experienced in Eastern warfare ; the 
second place to the Count of Artois, whom the King 
strictly enjoined, knowing his impetuous temper, not 
to advance too far in front of the rest. But he was 
no sooner across than he began to press past the 
Templars in order to pursue the flying Infidels. 
They remonstrated, bidding him keep his place ; but 
he could not have stopped had he wished ; for his 
bridle was held by a deaf knight, who heard nothing 
that they said and kept urging him forward, shouting. 



I j^ Saint Louis [1248- 

" On to them ! On to them ! " Ashamed to be outpaced, 
the Templars set spurs to their horses, and together 
they raced galloping forward right on to and through 
the skirts of the Infidel encampment. Nothing 
could resist the furious shock ; the Saracens scattered 
before them, taken unawares besides. Fakareddin, 
who was painting his beard in a bath, rushed out 
half-armed to rally his men, and fell fighting. The 
charge was carried up to the enemy's engines, oppo- 
site the Christian camp on the other bank. Here a 
halt was called. The Master of the Templars urged 
that they should wait for the King and the hinder 
division, and should seize the engines and the bank, 
which would secure communications with the rest of 
their army. But the Count of Artois, seeing Man- 
sourah lie open before them, scouted the sage counsel 
as cowardice or worse, upbraiding the notorious 
lukewarmness and treachery of the military orders. 
His insults broke their prudence. " Lift up our 
banner, then," cried the Grand Master ; " let us go 
to our death." William Longsword, who tried to 
appease the quarrel, got nothing but fresh taunts 
from the fiery count ; as he flung back a hot answer 
they all put on their helmets, and with pennons dis- 
played drove on again into Mansourah and out 
beyond it as far as the Sultan's suburban palace. 

But by this time the Saracens had recovered from 
their surprise and the loss of their general. The 
Emir Bibars, the victor of Gaza, had arrayed the 
Mamelukes, and the Christians found themselves 
surrounded by overwhelming numbers. Endeavour- 
ing to retreat through the town and to rejoin their 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 1 79 

main body, they were destroyed in the streets almost 
to a man, the Infidels obstructing the way with 
barricades and assailing them with missiles from the 
houses. Some were forced into the river and 
drowned. Robert of Artois fell, and William Long- 
sword, and Raoul of Coucy, and two hundred and 
eighty knights of the Temple. The Grand Master 
escaped with the loss of an eye. 

Meanwhile, the middle array of the French and 
the King himself with the rearguard having crossed 
the ford were advancing towards Mansourah. The 
whole force of the enemy was now in action. Their 
defence was ordered by Bibars, who threw his 
Mameluke horsemen in desperate charges against 
the foremost bands of crusaders, and rolled them 
back on the King's division, which came up with a 
great sounding of horns and trumpets. Louis was 
in the midst. " Never saw I so goodly a knight!" 
writes Joinville, who had been in front. " He shewed 
a head and shoulders above all his people, a gilded 
helm on his head, and a German sword * in his 
hand." His company, the flower of the French 
knights, engaged the Mamelukes hand to hand. " It 
was a fair feat of arms ; for none shot with bow or 
arbalest, but all was done with mace and sword 
between our men and the Turks in the mellay." 
The Infidels were driven back; and after holding 
a hasty council on the spot the King directed his 
march, by the advice of John of Valery, towards the 
engines, where he could join hands with the Duke of 
Burgundy across the river. 

*That is, a large, two-handed sword. 



i8o Saint Louis 



[1248- 



The advance was hampered by a rain of arrows 
from the light troops of the enemy, and by repeated 
onsets of the Mameluke chivalry. Once it was 
stayed to disengage the left, where the Counts of 
Poitiers and Flanders were hardly pressed. The 
bank and the engines were reached at last, and here 
was the most desperate struggle of the day ; for the 
Turks charged furiously home, trying to force the 
Christians into the Tafnis. They drove in the flank 
and came as far as the King. Six of them seized 
his bridle to drag him off, but he freed himself with 
great blows of his two-handed sword. Some of the 
French lost heart, and plunged into the water, to swim 
to their camp on the other side, and were drowned. 

Meanwhile Humbert the Constable, who had rid- 
den off with Joinville to aid the Count of Artois, on 
a report that he was defending a house in Mansou- 
rah, found fresh bodies of the enemy coming up 
from that quarter. They seized the bridge spanning 
a brook on this side the town ; there Peter of Brit- 
tany joined them, galloping back from Mansourah 
all bloody with wounds. With his help and that of 
the Count of Soissons they checked the Saracens 
and saved the King from being surrounded. Louis 
on his part maintained his ground, encouraging and 
rallying his men, till the Duke of Burgundy could 
bridge the stream from the end of the mole with a 
rough raft hastily constructed. Across this, at sun- 
set, the Constable brought the French crossbowmen, 
who, arraying themselves in front of the knights, let 
fly a shower of bolts. Then the Infidels turned and 
fled, leaving their camp, which the Bedouins had 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt i8i 

pillaged, and their engines in the hands of the 
crusaders. 

It was a Pyrrhic victory, and the fruits remained 
with the Saracens. The fight had been fierce and 
bloody, and the loss heavy to both sides ; the more 
easily borne, therefore, by the greater multitude. 
The victors, exhausted by wounds and fatigue, were 
not in a position to pursue their advantage ; the van- 
quished, encouraged by their nearness to victory and 
abounding in fresh resources, withdrew with con- 
fidence and the intention to attack in their turn. 
They triumphed in the destruction of the Christian 
vanguard, especially as the surcoat of the Count of 
Artois, emblazoned with the golden lilies, was found 
among the slain and believed for a time to be the 
King's. And the death of Fakareddin was a gain, 
since the conduct of the war devolved on a more 
vigorous and able commander. 

Louis lay that night in the enemy's pavilions. As 
he rode to his quarters, the Provost of the Hospital, 
who had just crossed the river, came up and, kissing 
his armed hand, asked whether there was any news 
of the Count of Artois. "There is sure news," said 
the King ; " I know that my brother is in Paradise." 
" Ha ! Sire," said the provost, " you have consola- 
tion ; for you have gained more honour than any 
King of France before you. You have passed a 
river in face of your enemies, and have beaten and 
chased them from the field and taken their tents 
and engines." " God be praised for all He has done 
for us," the King replied ; but great tears were seen 
to fall from his eyes. 



1 82 Saint Louis 



[1248- 



The Saracens, who had but drawn off a little dis- 
tance, assaulted the French in their new encampment 
next day at dawn ; and again, in full force, two days 
later. The King had surrounded his army with a 
wooden palisade. They charged it on horse and 
on foot, after throwing Greek fire ; and breaking 
through in one quarter, where the Count of Anjou 
was stationed, would have carried the position, had 
not Louis himself led an impetuous rescue and 
driven them back. At other points also the assault 
was repulsed, not without hard fighting. 

Failing to storm, they contented themselves with 
a blockade under the eye of their new Sultan, who 
arrived in Egypt a fortnight after the battle of Man- 
sourah. The star of the Christians was sinking fast. 
It was well for the King to encourage his troops and 
remind them that they had been victorious in two 
general engagements. Crippled by wounds, worn 
out with hardship, demoralised by failure, so far 
from marching on Cairo, they were in fact besieged 
in the two camps which they now occupied, one on 
each bank of the Tafnis. Their position grew less 
tolerable daily. In a short time, as the bodies of 
the slain rose to the surface of the water, the river 
was covered with rotten and stinking corpses, which 
choked the whole stream under the bridge joining 
the camps and for a stone's throw above. It took 
eight days to bury them in pits, where they contin- 
ued to spread infection. Being the season of Lent, 
the army fed on fish, which were gorged with human 
flesh. The sultry and corrupted air, the poisoned 
water, the unwholesome diet, soon bred a frightful 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 183 

plague. The limbs of the sick withered ; their skin 
turned black, like an old boot. Their flesh died 
and rotted round the mouth and gums, and had to 
be cut away before they could eat. Copious dis- 
charges of matter flowed from the head ; bleeding 
at the nose was a sign of death. The whole camp 
was filled with groans and cries, " like those of 
women in travail." The very priests, who attended 
the sick, fell down as they lifted the Host, stricken 
with the same malady. Famine was soon added to 
pestilence. No supplies could reach them ; for the 
Saracens with their light cavalry beset all the roads 
and paths, and dragging their galleys overland to a 
spot below the camp closed the approach from 
Damietta by river, and cut off several convoys, 
eighty vessels in all, before it was even suspected 
they were there. The scarcity was such that __ 
by Easter an ox was worth eighty pounds, <,»7*.u 
a sheep or a pig thirty, and a measure of 
wine ten. " The French," says the chronicler, " a 
nation above all others dainty and delicate in their 
food, were compelled to eat the most unclean and 
horrible substances, and even their precious horses." 

The faith of many began to waver as they consid- 
ered their present misery and recalled the numerous 
disasters of the Christians in the last thirty years. 
A multitude of common soldiers deserted to the 
enemy, who fed them and took them into service. 
They were allowed to keep their religion, but some 
earned rich rewards by apostacy. 

In addition to these evils, discord arose in the 
camp upon proposals of truce made by the Saracens, 



184 Saint Louis [1248- 

who offered, as before, to exchange Jerusalem for 
Damietta, but demanded the King's person to be 
left as a hostage. The barons would not hear of 
this. " Better every man of us should be killed or 
taken," one of them declared, " than that we should 
be said to have left our King in pawn." But the 
mass of the army, regarding such nice scruples less 
than the hope of avoiding their distresses, murmured 
at the rejection of the proffered terms. 

The King had already given up his encampment 
on the farther bank, and withdrawn his whole army 
into the space between the Tafnis and the Nile ; not 
without damage from the enemy, who attacked 
during the crossing. But the position was not bet- 
tered except in safety from assault. Seeing, there- 
fore, that all must perish if they stayed where they 
were, he prepared to retreat on Damietta. The sick 
were placed on galleys to be sent down the river. 
The same way went the Legate, the Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, and the Duke of Burgundy. Louis, 
though suffering from the general plague and from 
dysentery, so wasted that his bones seemed coming 
through the skin, and so weak that he could not 
walk, and several times swooned away, refused to 
accept this means of escape, which was pressed on 
him by his counsellors. " I have brought my peo- 
ple here," he said, " and I will take them back with 
me or die with them." Accordingly, mounted on a 
palfrey and unarmed, he took his place with the 
rearguard, the post of danger. 

The retreat began in the night. The Saracen 
horsemen soon pursued ; for the King's orders to 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 185 

break the bridge had not been executed in depart- 
ing. They came up with the dawn and rode in upon 
the French, who, enfeebled by sickness and 
tottering from hunger, were in no condi- ^ 
tion to repulse them. Order and discipline 
were lost. The retreat became a rout, and then a 
massacre. The oriflamme of France, the great 
standard of the Templars, the banners of Christian 
barons, known and dreaded by the Infidels on many 
stricken fields, were thrown down and trampled into 
the bloody mire. Scattered into knots, the crusaders 
fought desperately, or with less fortitude threw down 
their arms and were dragged away captive. For a 
while a faithful knight or two drove the enemy off 
the King, " like flies off a cup," as he said himself. 
But his sickness was heavy on him : he was obliged to 
dismount and be carried into a hut. He did not de- 
sire to live ; indeed, it seemed unlikely that he could 
survive his malady till nightfall, even if he escaped 
the swords of the Saracens. But when his brothers 
and a few counsellors who remained near him urged 
that by timely surrender he still might avert the total 
destruction of the army, he consented that Philip of 
Montfort should go to make what terms he could 
with the Emirs. While Philip was treating, a cry 
was raised among the soldiers through treachery or 
mistake: "The King orders you to yield ; do not 
cause the King to be killed." Thereupon the un- 
conquered remnant yielded and gave up their swords. 
The Emirs, seeing this, said to Philip that they would 
give no terms to those who had surrendered already. 
Louis himself was surrounded and seized ; and the 



1 86 Saint Lotds 



[1248- 



whole Christian host slain or taken prisoners ; for 
even the vanguard, which had pushed on almost to 
Damietta, was cut off and captured on the morrow. 

Those who went by river fared little better. 
The Duke of Burgundy, the Legate, and some 
others forced a way down ; but most of the vessels, 
crowded with the sick, were attacked by the enemy's 
galleys and by missiles from the shore, and either 
fired and sunk or taken with all on board. Great 
numbers were butchered and thrown into the stream, 
especially of the common sort and those whom 
sickness made an encumbrance. A few, preserved 
in hope of ransom, were carried to Mansourah, 
whither the King and the rest of the prisoners had 
been conducted, over ten thousand in all. 

The Christian patience and fortitude of Louis 
shone out brightly in his great calamity. Racked 
by illness and pain — though his life was saved 
through the skill of Saracen physicians — without at- 
tendants, clothes, or the common necessaries of life, 
threatened with torture or death, amid the overthrow 
of his hopes and the ruin of the holy cause to which 
he was vowed, he preserved an outward calm and a 
cheerful faith which were the marvel of all beholders. 
He was not heard to utter a single murmur against 
the decree of Providence, a single complaint or angry 
word at the great or petty misfortunes in which he 
was fallen ; but divided his time between the as- 
siduous practice of prayer and devotion, and the 
endeavour to secure tolerable terms for his army 
and himself without injury to the interests of 
Christendom. 



T250] The CrtLsade in Egypt 187 

He reserved this business to himself, forbidding 
the barons to arrange private ransoms, lest, if the 
rich won free, the poor multitude might be neglected 
and left in slavery. He declared, therefore, that he 
would bear the whole burden, and would make no 
treaty for his own release that did not include his 
followers. In the first flush of triumph the Infidels 
gave rein to the insolence which victory implants in 
Orientals. They boasted they would lead the King 
in chains through Asia, a present to the Caliph of 
Bagdad. To the common herd of prisoners, who 
were cooped in a large open court, surrounded by a 
wall, they offered, by hundreds at a time, the choice 
of the Koran or death ; and numbers who would not 
apostatise were slain. But a short time brought re- 
flection and a better treatment. Damietta was still 
untaken, an attempt to surprise it under cover of the 
Christian banners captured in the rout having failed. 
So strong a place, well garrisoned and provisioned, 
and open to reinforcement from the sea, might defy 
the attack of Saracen armies little versed in the arts 
of siege, and prove, like the fortified cities of the 
Syrian coast, a constant channel for fresh invasions. 
Moreover, the Sultan was anxious for his own reasons 
to bring on a speedy peace, desiring to break the 
Mamelukes, which he could not do while war con- 
tinued. Accordingly he caused proposals of truce 
and ransom to be made to his prisoner. 

The bargain was driven in the Eastern manner, at 
first with threats and high demands ; then, when 
these proved fruitless, descending to moderation 
and reason. The Infidels began by requiring the 



Saint Louis [1248- 



King to deliver up the strong places of Palestine. 
He answered, it was not in his power, for they were 
the Enfiperor's fiefs, not his ; and besides the senes- 
chals of those places were sworn on the Saints not 
to surrender them for any man's ransom. They 
feigned anger, and threatened him with the torture 
of the boot ; but he stood fast, merely saying that 
he was their prisoner and they could do what they 
would with his body. Making the same request 
to the barons separately, they got the same reply. 
It was then abandoned, and the question broached 
of surrendering Damietta. Even this Louis was un- 
willing to entertain, till he learned privately through 
his own followers that the town was not in condition 
to stand a long siege. 

He asked that the Sultan would fix a sum for his 
ransom, adding that the acceptance of the terms de- 
pended on the Queen, not on him, though he would 
enjoin her to agree. They named a million gold 
bezants, or five hundred thousand French pounds. 
" I will give that willingly for my people," said 
Louis, " and Damietta for myself ; since I am not one 
to be ransomed with money." The Sultan, admiring 
the spirit which did not haggle over so great a price, 
and not to be surpassed in magnanim.ity, at once 
remitted one fifth of the ransom, and the agreement 
was struck. It included a truce of ten years, and the 
release of all captives taken on both sides since the 
truce of the Emperor made with the Sultan's grand- 
father twenty years before. The Christians were 
secured in possession of the places they held in 
Palestine. Safety was promised for the sick and 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 189 

others who might remain in Damietta, till they could 
be fetched away, and for the property and stores of 
the crusaders left in that place. 

These favourable terms, considering the plight of 
the crusaders, were obtained not less by the firm- 
ness of the King than through the anxieties of his 
enemy. The Emirs were astonished that he negoti- 
ated without eagerness or abasement and with a 
perfect indifference to his own safety. He treated, 
they said, as if they were his prisoners, and not he 
theirs. This high and royal quality of constancy 
under misfortune was greatly esteemed by the 
Saracens, and their minds, not incapable of valuing 
it in an adversary, were turned to a measure of re- 
spect and admiration. Thence grew a milder be- 
haviour towards the captives ; who were much 
benefited besides by the medical arts of the country, 
better acquainted than their own with the treat- 
ment and cure of the sicknesses which afflicted 
them. 

Truce having been made, the Sultan set out 
towards Damietta. He carried the King and the 
principal persons of the French along with him, in- 
tending to release them and to take over the town. 
But the Mamelukes already suspected his designs, 
and feared the issue of peace. That famous mili- 
tary caste was then in its beginning. It had been 
formed first by the late Sultan out of slaves bought 
young and trained up to the use of arms, and had 
quickly acquired a dangerous preponderance in the 
state, which left it no alternative, in face of a jealous 
ruler, but supremacy or ruin. Moadham had not 



IQO Saiftt Louis [1248- 

the prudence to conceal his purpose until he was 
ready to strike. By the displacement of their leaders 
from his counsels and from high commands he irri- 
tated the pride of the Mamelukes, and gave earnest 
of their fate. Nor did he refrain from public threats 
against them and against Sajareldor. Her anger 
and fear incited them to anticipate their own de- 
struction by the death of the Sultan. The Emirs 
attacked him at a banquet in his pavilion on the 
banks of the river, Bibars himself striking the first 
blow. The Sultan escaped wounded, crying for 
help and threatening vengeance, to a wooden tower 
near by. To divert the attention of the rest of the 
army, the horns were sounded as if for an assault on 
Damietta ; meanwhile the conspirators surrounded 
the tower and set it on fire, mocking Moadham's en- 
treaties and menaces, and as he ran through a lane 
of them down to the Nile plunged their swords into 
his body. He reached the water and was killed 
swimming. A number of his murderers rushed to 
the French King's tent, and brandishing their bloody 
weapons asked what he would give to them who had 
slain his enemy. Their tumultuous entry and alarm- 
ing aspect and cries in an unknown tongue seemed 
to portend instant death. But Louis kept a steady 
front and answered nothing. Soon explanations 
were made ; they professed friendship and promised 
to carry out the treaty. Octal, the captain of the 
Mamelukes and chief of the conspiracy, demanded 
to be knighted there and then, remembering that 
such an honour had been- conferred on Fakareddin 
by the Emperor Frederick. Though the suit was 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 191 

pressed in threatening terms, and his companions ad- 
vised compHance, the King repHed that he would 
knight no unbeliever. 

The fate of the Christians hung in the balance for 
the next three days. The Emirs were divided, some 
wishing to kill all the captives and make an end, 
being no longer bound, as they held, by the oath of 
a dead man. Others, in the difficulty of choosing 
between rival claims, are said to have suggested that 
their prisoner should be made Sultan ; but to have 
abandoned the thought on considering that he was 
zealously devoted to his own faith and would be no 
puppet in their hands. Whatever may be the truth 
regarding this project, Louis himself believed it had 
been entertained, and avowed that he would not 
have refused the perilous offer. In the end the 
Mamelukes bestowed the crown of Egypt on Saja- 
reldor, who soon shared it with Azaddin, one of 
their number. 

Meanwhile, in the trouble and confusion of the 
camp, where no man was master for the moment, 
the captives, huddled together, and menaced by the 
words and gestures of the revolted soldiery, were 
justly alarmed for their lives. At last the Emirs 
decided to ratify the treaty and demanded a renewal 
of oaths, requiring the King to swear that he would 
deny God and the Mother of God and renounce his 
hope of salvation if he broke faith with them. 
Louis, horrified, refused to utter the impious words. 
Neither their insistence could move him, nor the en- 
treaties of his brothers, nor the sight of the aged 
Patriarch of Jerusalem, whom the Infidels tormented 



192 Saz7tt Louts 



[1248- 



till he cried out in pain that the King should swear 
and he would take the sin on his own soul. 

On the fourth day from the Sultan's assassination, 

being the Friday after Ascension, in the morning, 

Damietta was delivered to the Saracens ac- 

^ cording to agreement. The same evening 
the King and his followers were released. 
They embarked on their own galleys, which lay in 
the river and had already received on board the 
occupants of the town, who during the month of the 
captivity had endured great troubles. The chief 
burden fell on the Queen, who bore it as befitted 
the wife of Louis. She was but three days from 
childbirth when the news of her husband's capture 
came ; and the very day after her delivery saw her 
chamber filled with a mob of seafaring men, Pisans 
and Genoese, who declared their resolution to sail 
back home with their ships. Margaret summoned 
up strength to persuade them from this desertion, 
which would have left the army without hope of 
escape ; appealing to their pity and cupidity she 
undertook to pay and feed them all at her own ex- 
pense while they stayed. This she did at immense 
cost. The son whom she bore was given the name 
of Tristan, in commemoration of the sad circum- 
stances of his birth. She was obliged to leave Da- 
mietta before her time of recovery was out, in view 
of its approaching surrender, and sailed to Acre to 
await the King. 

The promise of the Saracens to respect the per- 
sons and property of the crusaders left in the place 
was not kept. Enraged, it is said, by finding that 



1250] The Crusade in Egypt 193 

the French in departing had destroyed most of the 
stores which should have been given up, they mas- 
sacred the sick, and making three great piles, of 
military engines, of salted pork, and of dead bodies, 
set fire to all. Damietta was afterwards razed to 
the ground, lest it might tempt a third Christian ex- 
pedition to seek a footing in Egypt. 

It had been stipulated that one half the ransom 
should be paid before the King's departure, Alphonso 
of Poitiers being detained as an hostage till this was 
done. The treasure at Damietta sufficed, except for 
thirty thousand pounds, which was obtained with 
difficulty from the Templars. The weighing out of 
the money took two whole days. By an oversight 
of the Saracens the French paid ten thousand pounds 
too little ; but Louis learning this from the rash 
boast of one of his people was angry at the fraud, 
and insisted that the error should be made good at 
once. As soon as the business was over he stood 
out of the river mouth, the Count of Poitiers joining 
him on the way, and set sail for Acre. Not all fol- 
lowed ; for the Count of Soissons and other great 
men had departed on the morrow of Hberation to 
return to France, disregarding the King who begged 
them to stay at least till the treaty was executed. 
With them went Peter of Brittany, stricken with a 
sickness, which ended his troublesome life three 
weeks afterwards at sea. 

The news of the disaster was for some time dis- 
believed in western Europe. It was the more un- 
welcome and surprising as the report of the capture 
of Damietta had been followed by rumours which 
3 



194 Saint Louis [1248- 

turned the further plans and hopes of the crusaders 
into accomphshed fact, and received a full dress of 
detail and verisimilitude from the invention of re- 
turning pilgrims or the willing imagination of their 
hearers. It was stated for a certainty that the King 
had taken Cairo, which was betrayed by its garrison 
and by an insurrection of Christian captives ; and 
that he had afterwards defeated the Sultan and a 
vast army in a pitched field fought from sunrise to 
sunset. Even the order of battle was related and 
the numbers of the slain. The Sultan had fled into 
unknown parts ; the Infidels had abandoned Alex- 
andria ; and the French were masters of all lower 
Egypt. 

The truth, as it became confirmed beyond doubt, 
was a rude awakening from these pleasant dreams. 
The grief was greatest in France, where it touched 
all ranks and classes of men. It was aggravated by 
the distance of the calamity, the slowness of com- 
munication, and the difficulty of ascertaining the 
fate of particular persons. Things were turned to 
the worst, as each man supposed his own kinsfolk 
and friends to have perished, and the whole realm 
took on the aspect of mourning and lamentation. 
The general body of Christendom felt the blow, 
though less keenly. Unbelief was encouraged and 
the zeal of faith chilled, particularly in Venice and 
those parts of Italy which trade and intercourse 
with the East made tolerant of the Infidels and 
anxious to conciliate their victorious power. The 
papal court was deeply troubled, and fell into deeper 
odium. For many imputed the misfortune to the 



1250] The C^^usade m Egypt 195 

divisions and weakness engendered by its policy, 
saying that things would have gone otherwise, had 
the Emperor been free to assist the crusade. Men 
added up in the tale of its faults the slaughter in 
Egypt and the impending loss of Palestine, besides 
so much Christian blood wastefully spilt in Italy and 
Germany. 

Among those who mourned the slain, the Countess 
of Salisbury, mother of William Longsword, is re- 
lated to have shown a spirit deserving mention. She 
had retired from the world to become abbess of a 
house of nuns at Laycock. Hearing of her son's 
death it is said she fell on her knees and gave thanks 
to God that she had been thought worthy to bear 
such a one, who was now numbered with the martyrs 
and might be allowed to help her with his interces- 
sion in attaining Paradise. 





THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM 



THE TEMPLE 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SOJOURN IN PALESTINE 
1250-I254 

THE King reached Acre after six days' voyage 
with the wreck and fragment of his expedi- 
tion. Not one hundred knights accompanied 
him of the two thousand eight hundred who had 
assembled in Cyprus. Many were dead ; many in 
prison ; some had started for home. His brothers 
of Anjou and Poitiers and a few great lords still re- 
mained, but impoverished and unattended and sick 
of the war. The Count of Anjou in particular showed 
open impatience and aversion, avoiding the King's 
company and spending his time in dicing, even in 
the ship. This at such a time much annoyed Louis, 
who one day threw the dice overboard with his own 
hands, but could not bring his brother to a change 
of behaviour. 

The question arose, whether to return at once to 
France, or to stay in Palestine and endeavour to re- 
lieve and confirm the Christians there established, 
and at the same time to procure the release of the 
captives and the fulfilment of the Egyptian treaty. 

196 



1250-54] The Sojotirn in Palestine 197 

Louis laid the issue before his followers for deliber- 
ation and advice. On the one hand, he said, the 
Regent, in letters written before hearing of the disas- 
ter, urged immediate return, on the ground that the 
English truce had not been renewed, and the king- 
dom lay open to attack. On the other, he was as- 
sured by those of the country that departure at this 
moment involved the instant surrender of the settle- 
ments in the Holy Land, since no one would dare 
to defend them against the victorious Infidels, if he 
withdrew. 

A week was given to consider the matter. When 
the Council met, the French lords one after another 
spoke for returning home. The Count of JafTa, who 
was chief of the Eastern barons, professed unwill- 
ingness to speak ; for his own castles, he said, were 
in risk and his motives therefore suspect. Being 
pressed by Louis he declared that were the King 
able to keep the field for a year he would win great 
honour by doing so. No one supported this view 
till the turn came to Joinville, who almost alone of 
the French was anxious to stay. For he remem- 
bered, he tells us, the parting words addressed to 
him by his cousin, which reflected the bitter experi- 
ence of former crusades. "You are going over sea; 
but take care how you return. No knight, be he 
poor or rich, can return without shame, if he leave in 
the power of the Saracens the poor people of God 
who have gone in his company." 

Accordingly he now voted to remain. The King's 
treasure, he said, was not exhausted. By its help he 
could recruit his forces and keep the field ; and the 



198 Saint Louis [1250- 

poor captives, who had otherwise no hope of deliv- 
ery, might be rescued from bondage. The Council 
was struck silent by his words, and affected to tears ; 
for not one of them but had kinsmen and dear 
friends still prisoners in Egypt. Nevertheless they 
held to their desire, and cried down William Beau- 
mont, Marshal of France, who spoke on the same 
side. Louis closed the Council, saying that he would 
announce his decision in a week. During the repast 
which followed he sat meditating in silence; then 
coming to Joinville, who stood apart at a window, 
sorry because the rest covered him with reproaches 
and he thought that the King resented his advice, 
leaned on his shoulder and talked with him about 
the debate. " Shall I do a bad act if I depart, say 
you?" he asked him. " So may God help me, Sire, 
as I think it," Joinville replied. "And if I stay, will 
you stay?" The answer was "Yes." "Be com- 
forted then," said. Louis, " for your advice pleases 
me well. But tell no one for a week." 

At the end of that time he reassembled the Coun- 
cil and declared his decision. " My lords, I thank 
you all for your advice, whether to go or to stay. 
But I think that if I stay my realm runs no danger ; 
for Madam my mother has people enough to defend 
it. And the barons of this country tell me that, if I 
go, all will go with me and the kingdom of Jerusa- 
lem be lost. Therefore I am resolved to stay. Those 
of you, rich men and knights, who are willing to stay 
with me, speak out and tell me your needs : and I 
will give you so much that it will be your fault, not 
mine, if you do not remain." 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 199 

His words were received with surprise and visible 
grief, but did not stir the barons from their purpose. 
The King dismissed his brothers in August, nomin- 
ally to help the Regent at home and to gather 
men and money for his succour. They departed 
certainly without reluctance, perhaps at their own 
request, the Count of Anjou at any rate feigning a 
sorrow that he did not feel; they were accompanied 
or followed by most lords of the army. Louis was 
left with the force of Palestine and of the Orders, 
and a few Frenchmen, who, thinking with Join- 
ville, were willing to remain. These he took into 
pay, their own resources being exhausted. 

His situation was improved by the weakness of 
Egypt, following on revolution, and by the discords 
of the Saracen states. The Mamelukes who held 
Damascus and Syria refused to recognise the gov- 
ernment of Sajareldor, which they had had no part 
in establishing, and submitted themselves to Naser 
of Aleppo, cousin of the murdered Sultan and chief 
of the House of Saladin, now that the Egyptian 
dynasty was destroyed. He occupied the country 
and sent envoys to Louis at Acre, demanding his 
alliance to avenge the death of Moadham, and 
promising the restoration of Jerusalem. Louis re- 
plied that he had made a truce with the Emirs; 
they had broken its terms which he would summon 
them to repair; if they refused he would be at lib- 
erty and willing to join the Sultan against them. 
He despatched John of Valenciennes to Egypt to 
demand fulfilment of the treaty. 

The Emirs, distrusting female rule, had already 



200 Saint Louis [1250- 

caused Sajareldor to take Azaddin Moaz, a Mame- 
luke general, as her husband and associate 

AD . 

in the empire ; and the new Government, 

Y ' alarmed by the successes of Naser, was in- 
^ ^ ^ clined to execute the bargain with the Christ- 
ians. Two hundred knights and a great number of 
common people were released and brought 
, to Acre. With them came an embassy de- 

siring friendship and alliance against Aleppo. 
The King named his conditions : the delivery of all 
prisoners and slaves, even of the children who had 
been taken young and brought up in the Mussul- 
man religion ; the giving up for burial of the heads of 
slain Christians which had been fixed round the walls 
of Cairo, some ever since the battle of Gaza ; the remis- 
sion of two hundred thousand pounds still owing on 
account of the ransom. The rescued knights, a wel- 
come addition to his forces, were taken into pay. 

He remained at Acre till March of the following 
year, strengthening the fortifications and waiting on 
the turn of events. During the stay he received an 
embassy from the Old Man of the Mountain, who 
has been mentioned before. The account is curious, 
and illustrates both the unusual courage of the King 
and the remarkable position of the Assassin prince. 

His envoy was followed by two attendants, carry- 
ing knives and a winding sheet, to be delivered as 
tokens of death to those who refused his demands. 
Being admitted to the King's presence he asked if 
he knew his master. Louis replied that he had 
heard of him. " Then if you have heard of him," 
said the envoy, " I wonder that you have not sent 



1254] The Sojoztm in Palestine 201 

presents to make him your friend, as the Emperor 
of Germany, the King of Hungary, and the Sultan of 
Babylon * do every year ; for they know that they 
only live as long as my master pleases. But if you 
will not do that, then get him released from the 
tribute which he owes to the Temple and the Hos- 
pital, and he will hold you free." Louis gave no 
answer, but told the envoy to return to another 
audience in the afternoon. He came, and found the 
King sitting between the Masters of the Temple and 
the Hospital. Being ordered to repeat his words of 
the morning he did so reluctantly and with evident 
shame. The Masters rated him soundly, saying that 
were it not for respect to the King to whom he was 
sent they would drown him in the sea. They com- 
manded him to return to his master and come back 
within a fortnight with letters and presents to make 
satisfaction. This bold treatment was successful. 
The ambassador returned within the stated time, 
bringing the shirt of the Old Man, as a token, he 
said, that the King of France was as near to his mas- 
ter's heart as the shirt is to the body. He brought 
also presents of jewels exquisitely worked. Louis 
accepted the gifts and sent others in return. 

Meanwhile the war between Egypt and Aleppo 
was pursued with varying success. Naser invaded 
Egypt and came within a day's march of 

Cairo. There he was defeated with heavy 

I2SI 
loss in February and fled back to Damascus ; 

but remained strong enough to repel an invasion in 

* That is, the Sultan of Egypt ; Cairo was generally called Baby- 
lon by the Westerns at this time. 



202 Saint Louis 



[1250- 



his turn the following summer. Louis had con- 
cluded no engagement with either party, and was 
too weak to interfere in the struggle had he wished. 
But it left him undisturbed to recruit, to fortify, to 
repress disorder, and establish government in the 
neighbourhood of the Christian settlements. 

At the end of March he went from Acre on a pil- 
grimage to Nazareth by way of Cana and Mount 
Tabor. Clad in a hair shirt, and fasting the whole 
day, he approached the holy place. As it appeared 
in the distance he lighted from his horse and fell on 
his knees in prayer ; then entering on foot, heard 
high mass and received the sacrament from his con- 
fessor. Immediately afterwards he removed with 
his followers to Caesarea, and set himself to restore 
that place from the ruin which the Saracens had 
made, building a high and thick wall with towers, 
ditches, and other defences. There he remained 
over a year, except for a few journeys, pressing on 
the troublesome and costly work of fortification, 
even labouring with his own hands to encourage the 
others and gain the indulgences which the Legate 
had promised to all who took part. 

He was hindered by narrowness of means and 
chiefly by want of men. If he had but a reinforce- 
ment of two hundred knights, he wrote, he would 
be able to make advantage out of the divisions of 
the Infidels. His brothers showed little zeal in the 
raising and forwarding of succours ; and from the 
rest of Christendom he received no more help in his 
misfortunes than he had in the inception of the 
crusade. The Emperor, it is true, sent envoys to 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 263 

the Sultan, on the news of the captivity, to procure 
the King's release ; but the mission arrived too late 
and found him already at Acre, Its good faith was 
suspected ; whether justly, does not appear. The 
English King took a more unfriendly attitude, re- 
fusing to renew the expired truce except for short 
periods, pretending grievances, and reviving his un- 
settled claims. Not that he had the spirit or the 
power to pursue them in arms, even had the Pope 
not threatened to punish such attempt by an inter- 
dict on England ; but the pretext of impending war 
was useful in obtaining supplies of money for other 
needs from his unwilling subjects. The trading 
cities of Italy, Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, had 
their own quarrel with the crusaders and the King, 
alleging various losses and wrongs inflicted on them 
in course of the expedition, especially at Damietta. 
They put themselves right by waylaying the French 
on the high seas and robbing or drowning those 
whom they caught. 

Pope Innocent did not swerve from his strife with 
the Emperor on account of the misfortunes of the 

Christian cause. Nor did the enmity cease 

. AD 

with Frederick s death. Innocent ordered 

a crusade to be preached against his sons, ^ ' 

offering larger indulgences than were given 

cem- 
for the crusade of Palestine, while he filled , 

ber 
his coffers by releasing from their vows for a -rof-h 

fine those who had undertaken the latter. 

The French Council, indignant that their King should 

be weakened and pinched in his adversity, and 

Christian swords diverted from his aid to intestine 



2o4 Saint Louis [1250- 

strife and the service of Roman ambition, confiscated 
the lands of all Frenchmen who joined the papal 
army. " Let those who fight for the Pope live on 
the Pope," said the Regent. 

She almost alone remained faithful to her son, 
when in the first shock of disaster his reputation 
grew clouded even in his own kingdom. She guid- 
ed the realm with a steady hand in the moment of 
distress and danger. She staved off the English de- 
mands and induced her nephew Ferdinand of Castile 
to take the cross; death unhappily prevented the 
execution of his design. She raised the immense 
sums required for the ransom, the war, and the works 
to be carried out in Palestine, chiefly by tithing the 
revenues of the Church. It was only by aid of these 
supplies that Louis was able to keep his footing; 
since nearly the whole force with him was serving 
for pay and at his cost. During three years' sojourn 
the charges of his hostel amounted to a hundred and 
sixty thousand pounds ; of fortification to nearly 
one hundred thousand pounds ; of the army and 
navy to six hundred and twenty-five thousand 
pounds. The total of expense was over a million 
pounds, a vast quantity of money according to the 
standard of those times. In addition to this, one 
great convoy of treasure, twenty-two chests of silver, 
was lost at sea in a storm. It speaks well for the 
riches of France and the strength of the Government 
that such heavy exactions were levied with so little 
trouble though not without complaints. 

But the kingdom was disturbed for a time by a 
strange disorder. This was the Shepherds' crusade, 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 205 

as it was called, an agitation among the mass of the 
people, which cannot be explained in its causes or 
traced to any ordinary motive of mankind. Such 
frenzies appear to spread by a sort of contagion, and 
were perhaps less uncommon, at any rate more 
strongly effective, in an age when simplicity and 
ignorance were wider diffused than at present, and 
when fewer were accustomed to check the infectious 
current of emotion by reasoning and reflection. The 
author of the Shepherds' crusade was a renegade 
Hungarian monk, who began preaching in France in 
the spring of the year 125 1. He affirmed that the 
Virgin Mary had sent him to call shepherds and 
country people to the recovery of the Holy Land ; 
and had promised to the humble and weak the suc- 
cess which was denied to the mighty and strong in 
arms. He pretended to hold her written mandate 
in his hand, which was closed by a natural deform- 
ity. This token, added to his eloquence and ascetic 
habits, soon procured crowds of followers. They 
passed through the country bearing banners on 
which was painted a lamb carrying a cross. Every- 
where the labouring people, especially shepherds, 
ran to join them, leaving the fields and flocks. Their 
numbers were said to amount to a hundred thousand, 
women and children as well as men ; they divided 
themselves into troops by hundreds and thousands. 
Their leaders professed to work miracles and see 
visions of angels ; they claimed episcopal authority, 
gave blessing and absolution, celebrated marriages, 
and conferred the cross. The clergy disfavoured 
these unauthorised proceedings ; and so drew on 



2o6 Saint Louis 



[1250- 



themselves the fury of the fanatic preachers, who 
reviled bishops and friars and priests alike for greed 
and pride and hypocrisy. Their followers joined in 
the cry and carried their violence from words to 
deeds, wounding and killing all who opposed their 
madness, with swords, axes, reaping-hooks, and other 
rude weapons which they carried. A detachment 
entered Paris, where the Hungarian preached in the 
church of St. Eustace, dressed in bishop's robes. 
Thence he went to Orleans and was received by the 
citizens, though the Bishop forbade any cleric to 
hear or join him, under pain of anathema. The 
scholars of the University disturbed his preaching ; 
they were set on by his partisans and many were 
slain. The attack spread to the body of the clergy, 
who were killed or driven into hiding and their 
houses sacked and burned. 

The Regent had refused at first to interfere with 
the crusade, approving its object and hoping it 
might turn to the King's advantage. But the 
tumults and excesses of the fanatics grew greater. 
Their bands were joined by many thieves, outlaws, 
and rascals of all sorts, for the sake of impunity and 
plunder: and these men easily turned the blind zeal 
of the simple multitude to their own purposes. Vil- 
lages and even towns were entered and spoiled, the 
clergy in particular being robbed and ill-treated. 
The report of this caused Blanche to change her 
mind, and to take measures to disperse the mob and 
to seize and punish its leaders. They were excom- 
municated with her consent ; while the laity also 
began to treat them as enemies. Meanwhile the Hun- 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 207 

garian with a part of his following came to Bourges, 
where they robbed the houses of the clergy who 
had fled. They also entered the synagogues of the 
Jews, burned their books, and took their goods. The 
townsfolk, however, were not deceived by their pre- 
tended miracles ; and when the news came that they 
were excommunicated and outlawed, expelled them ; 
and afterwards pursuing, killed the Hungarian and 
some others. The multitude, finding no one to lead 
or support them, and everything hostile, for the most 
part melted away and returned home. A few bands 
remaining in different parts were broken up, and the 
chiefs taken and hanged or killed by the peasantry. 
One troop reached Bordeaux, and was driven away 
by Simon of Montfort, governor of Gascony. A 
number of the honester sort received the cross afresh 
and went to join the King in Palestine. 

While Louis was at Caesareathe envoys who went 
from Cyprus to the Khan of Tartary returned with 
the account of their journey. They had travelled 
from Antioch for a whole year through countries 
subjugated by the Tartars and full of the traces of 
their devastating cruelty. The Khan was dead be- 
fore they arrived, and his successor received them as 
bearers of the homage of the French King, taking 
their presents as tribute and using the mission to 
exalt his own glory and power in the eyes of his 
vassals, who were bidden to see how strange princes 
sent obedience from the ends of the earth. Tartar 
ambassadors accompanied them back to Palestine, 
with a boastful message that peace was good and 
only to be had by favour of the great Khan. They 



2o8 Saint Lotns [1250- 

recounted the roll of his enemies who had perished 
by the sword, and bade the French seek his friend- 
ship and pay yearly tribute of gold and silver, lest 
they should be destroyed in like manner. The King 
was sorry he had sent, since his overtures were so 
interpreted. About the same time some reinforce- 
ment was received from Norway and from other 
parts, but of no great strength. 

The account which has come down of the King's 
behaviour during this time and the rest of his stay 
in the Holy Land has helped much to confirm his 
fame ; and his patient struggle with adverse and 
narrow circumstances is the most notable part of 
the crusade to those who regard the moral qualities 
of action rather than the splendour of the stage on 
which it is displayed. Not that his sojourn was 
fruitless of achievement, though he was not allowed 
to accomplish his dreams. But it is most memor- 
able because it afforded scope for the practice of the 
virtues, the active piety, the unshaken fortitude, the 
boundless charity, which, exercised in such a place 
and such a cause, already began to shed round his 
character the halo of sainthood. 

His messengers were allowed to pass through 
Egypt searching out Christian slaves and prisoners. 
Those held by the Sultan or who lay in dungeons 
were set free ; those who belonged to private persons 
were ransomed at the King's cost. They were 
brought to Acre, a hundred, or three hundred, or 
five hundred at a time, and being destitute were sup- 
plied from the royal bounty with suitable clothing 
and a hundred drachmas apiece or more, according to 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 209 

their condition. The whole number thus reheved 
was over three thousand men ; and a much greater 
multitude was released, some having been many 
years in bondage. 

Louis visited the sick in the army constantly dur- 
ing the expedition, especially his own servants, with- 
out regard to his health. His devotion was exem- 
plary, as always. Joinville relates how, after hearing 
one mass at daybreak, he rode out into the coun- 
try in the early morning to attend another at a small 
shrine built to commemorate one of the miracles of 
our Lord, scoffing at the danger which at once sug- 
gested itself to the mind of his companion. He 
preserved an unrufBed cheerfulness and a temper 
not soured by misfortune, though it was sometimes 
tried by the exorbitant demands of his followers. 
" I will not take pay," said Joinville to him at Cae- 
sarea, " but I will make this agreement with you, 
that, whatever I ask, you shall not be angry ; and I 
on my part will not be angry if you refuse it." 
"When the King heard this," the writer continues, 
" he burst out laughing, and said he would retain me 
on those terms ; and he took me by the hand and 
brought me to the Legate and his Council, and re- 
peated to them the bargain we had made, and they 
were very merry at it." Some time afterwards 
Joinville made a request which the King said was 
unreasonable. "You have broken our treaty," said 
Joinville, " that you were not to be angry, whatever 
Tasked." "Nay," said Louis, smiling, " I am not 
angry ; ask what you please." But he did not grant 

the request. 
14 



2IO Saint Louis [1250- 

He did justice according to the uses of the coun- 
try, showing particular severity towards a knight 
found in a brothel, who was sentenced to lose his 
horse and armour and be expelled from the camp ; 
and towards the Templars, who had made a treaty 
with the Sultan of Aleppo without his leave. They 
were compelled to humble themselves in public and 
to renounce the treaty, and the brother who had 
negotiated it was banished from Palestine. 

Little tolerance as he had for Infidels, he showed 
himself of a mercy and humanity towards them un- 
usual in that age. He forbade their women and 
children to be slain or maltreated, and was more 
anxious to capture his enemies than to slay them, 
hoping to effect their conversion. " God, who 
knows all things, knows," he is reported to have 
said on one occasion, " that if the whole world were 
mine, I would barter it all for the gain of souls." 
Some of his prisoners were turned to believe ; while 
other Saracens, several of high rank, came to him of 
their own accord and were baptised after instruction. 
The converts were well treated and carried back to 
France, where Louis trusted and enriched them. 
He also made an ordinance in Palestine that no one 
should revile or reproach renegades who had re- 
turned to their faith after escaping from captivity. 

At Easter, 1252, the Egyptians accepted the terms 
which had been named eighteen months before, and 
a truce for fifteen years was concluded with their 
envoys at Caesarea. There was an opposing party 
among the French, who thought the King dimin- 
ished his honour by alliance with any Infidel ; but 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 211 

this feeling was less strong than at the beginning of 
the crusade, before zeal was tempered with experi- 
ence or cooled by misfortune, and it yielded now to 
the imperious needs of policy. The Saracens un- 
dertook to restore all Palestine this side of Jordan, 
except four places ; to give up all Christians whom 
they still detained ; to surrender the bones of the 
dead for burial ; and to remit the rest of the ransom. 
In return the King promised aid against Aleppo. 
He was to be at Jaffa with his forces in May, and 
the Emirs to be at Gaza by the same time ; other- 
wise the treaty was null. But their march was de- 
layed by a rising of Bedouins : and the Sultan of 
Aleppo, having failed to draw Louis over, despatched 
fifteen thousand men to the borders to hinder the 
junction of his enemies. The Mamelukes, who mus- 
tered less than half this number, were afraid to ad- 
vance to Gaza ; while the King, coming to Jaffa 
according to his promise, had only a few hundred 
knights and could not go to help them. The Egypt- 
ians therefore asked that the time of rendezvous 
might be put off ; and meanwhile carried out the 
stipulations of the treaty relating to the release of 
captives and the restoration of Christian remains. 
They also sent the gift of an elephant, which was 
afterwards transported to France. 

Louis having been welcomed to Jaffa by the Count 
remained there for a year. His following was en- 
camped outside the fortress, which he 
laboured to strencrthen and extend. He ' * 

built a wall right round the outer town from 
one sea to the other, with three gates, twenty-four 



212 Saint Louis [1250- 

towers, and a moat. The Legate undertook one 
gate and a third of the wall ; it cost him thirty- 
thousand pounds. A church and a convent were 
also built within the fortification, and furnished by 
Louis with all that was needed for service and-main- 
tenance. As the troops of Aleppo were occupying 
the inland country as far south as Gaza, there were 
some excursions and skirmishes, with no great dam- 
age to either side ; except that a foray which the 
Master of Saint Lazarus led forth without the King's 
knowledge was cut off by the enemy. All save 
four men perished ; but a rescue went out when the 
news came to camp, and falling on the victors put 
them to rout. 

During the stay at Jaffa Louis had the opportu- 
nity of visiting Jerusalem under the safe-conduct of 
the Sultan of Aleppo. But, like Richard of England, 
his great-uncle, he refused to look upon the Holy 
City which he could not save from the Infidel ; fear- 
ing, it is said, lest other princes might cover them- 
selves with his example, and think it enough to make 
the pilgrimage to the Sepulchre, without attempting 
its deliverance. 

At the end of this year died Blanche, Queen dow- 
ager and Regent of France, worn out with the 

labours of an arduous life. Her closing days 
AD o J 

were embittered by the absence of her best 

^ ' beloved son, the death of another, and the 
illness of a third, the Count of Poitiers, who 
was struck with paralysis soon after his re- 
turn. She had been failing in health for some time, 
and was seized with sickness at Melun, whence she 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 213 

was removed to Paris, and then relapsed. A few 
days before death she received the vows and habit 
of the Cistercian Order. When the end approached 
she was carried to a bed of straw, and expired as the 
priests commended her soul to God, joining in their 
prayers with her last breath. She was buried in her 
royal robes, put on over the nun's dress, with her 
crown on her head, in the church of her own foun- 
dation at Pontoise. Her heart was afterwards re- 
moved from the body and interred beneath the 
choir of her other abbey, of our Lady of the Lily, 
near Melun. 

She was a princess of the highest virtue and tal- 
ents ; a devoted wife, and a mother whose children 
were the living testimony of her Avorth. She was 
religious in life and conversation, the foundress of 
two abbeys, and charitable to the poor. Her temper 
was open and resolute and inclined to be arbitrary. 
She loved justice above all things and was not 
very scrupulous about the means of enforcing it. 
She governed the kingdom wisely for many years, 
and showed herself equal to great dangers. Her 
fault was jealousy of power, which did little harm, 
seeing the weakness of royal authority at the begin- 
ning of the reign and the continual attempts to en- 
feeble it further. She was jealous also of affection, 
especially that of her children ; this led to her harsh 
treatment of the younger Queen which has been 
mentioned. She had a great reputation in her life 
throughout Europe ; and a chronicler says that her 
death left France deprived of all comfort. Another 
adds that it was a great trouble to the common 



214 Saint Louis [1250- 

people, since she protected them from the oppression 
of the rich and upheld justice. 

An incident of her second regency illustrates both 
this side of her character and the disregard of legal- 
ity which she sometimes showed. The Canons of 
Notre Dame at Paris, having some dispute with their 
serfs, had thrown a number of them into their dun- 
geon, where they were near dying of hunger- and ill 
treatment. A complaint was carried to the Regent, 
who requested the Canons to release their prisoners, 
promising to judge the matter herself and see right 
done. The Chapter refused, denying the Queen's 
title to interfere in the punishment of their own 
peasants, over whom they had power of life and 
death. To assert their authority they imprisoned 
also the wives and famihes of the serfs who had 
complained. Some of the unfortunate people died 
from starvation and overcrowding. When Blanche 
heard of it she fell into a rage, and gathering a body 
of armed men went to the dungeon of the Chapter 
and broke in the doors, herself giving the first blow 
with a staff she had in her hand. Having set the 
inmates free, she seized the revenues of the Canons 
until they made amends, and forced them more- 
over to enfranchise their serfs upon payment of a 
yearly rent. 

The tidings of her death came to Jaffa. The Le- 
gate was first to learn it, and taking with him the 
Archbishop of Tyre and the royal confessor, drew the 
King apart into his chapel and there broke the news. 
Louis cried out, and shedding tears fell on his knees 
before the altar. " Lord God," he said, " I give Thee 



1254] The Sojozirn in Palestine 215 

thanks that Thou hast left me my mother so long ; 
and now hast taken her to Thyself according to Thy 
good pleasure. True it is, dear Lord Christ, that I 
loved her above all creatures alive, as she well de- 
served. But since it is by Thy will that she is dead, 
blessed be Thy name." The prelates retired and 
left him to say the office of the dead with his con- 
fessor. For two days he nursed his grief alone, 
speaking to no one ; and from that time forth he 
heard a private mass for his mother's soul every day, 
except Sundays and Holy days ; and caused many 
services to be said for her repose in the churches of 
Palestine and France. The Queen showed almost 
equal sorrow. Joinville asked why she grieved, for 
he knew there was little love between her and 
Blanche. She answered that it was not for herself, 
but for the King's sake, and her daughter's, who was 
now left in France without a woman guardian. 

In the spring of the next year the Egyptians, 
having been attacked by the Sultan of Aleppo and 

fought a doubtful battle, made peace with 

• • . . AD 
him, abandoning their unratified treaty with * * 

the Christians, who were left to shift for ^^ 

themselves. The army of Aleppo returning from 

the south, thirty thousand strong, passed within a 

few miles of Jaffa, where Louis lay with his little 

force of fourteen hundred men-at-arms. The French 

crossbowmen harassed their retreat, and on Saint 

John's* day there was a sharp engagement and a 

body of cavalry was sent to relieve the bowmen, who 

had entangled themselves with the enemy. But as 

* That is, Saint John Lateian, May 6th. 



2i6 Saint Louis [1250- 

soon as they were extricated the King withdrew his 
men, fearing the disparity of numbers ; while the 
Saracens on their side, being straitened for supplies 
at the end of a long campaign, continued their re- 
treat without assaulting the camp, to the surprise of 
the crusaders. Passing northwards they attempted 
to hold Acre to ransom, but were gallantly repulsed 
by the Christians of the neighbourhood, who had 
retired within the walls. 

They then proceeded to Sidon, whither Louis 
some time before had despatched workmen, with a 
guard of soldiers, to repair the walls. At the enemy's 
approach, as the breaches were not yet closed, the 
small garrison withdrew to the citadel, which was 
very strong and surrounded by the sea, taking with 
them as many as could be crowded within its narrow 
limits. The Saracens burst into the undefended 
town, sacking it and putting the inhabitants to the 
sword. More than two thousand were slain. Report 
of the disaster reached the King as he was preparing 
to fortify an inland place, said to have been a strong- 
hold in the wars of the Maccabees, between Jaffa 
and Jerusalem. He was much afflicted ; and on the 
advice of the barons of Palestine, whom experience 
had taught that no fortress could be held for long in 
a hostile country unless provisioned from the sea, 
turned from his first design, in order to repair the 
ruin of Sidon. 

He left Jaffa at the end of June and desired to 
attack Samaria on the way. But the native barons 
again opposed the enterprise, as too distant and dan- 
gerous for the King to expose his person, and with 



1254] The Sojourn m Palestine 217 

it all their hopes, to the risk of cutting off and de- 
struction. It was therefore given up, since Louis 
refused to send a detachment where he could not 
adventure himself, and the march was continued. 
As they lay on the sands near Acre, Joinville relates 
that there came a troop of pilgrims from Great Ar- 
menia, on their way to Jerusalem under safe-conduct 
of the Saracens, and asked him through an interpre- 
ter to show them the sainted King. He went to 
Louis where he sat in his tent on the ground, lean- 
ing against the pole, and repeated their request. 
"But I do not wish, Sire," he added, "to kiss your 
bones at present." Louis laughed aloud and bade 
the pilgrims be fetched. " And when they had seen 
the King they commended him to God, and he 
them." 

When Tyre was reached the King divided his 
forces, proceeding himself to Sidon, while he sent a 
body to assault the strong place of Belinas, anciently 
called Caesarea Philippi, which served the Infidels as 
a base for their ravages. He was persuaded with dif- 
ficulty not to accompany this expedition himself, and 
detached for it nearly his whole force, remaining with 
so few that he would have run great danger had the 
enemy attacked him. The crusaders took Belinas 
by storm, but failed to dislodge the Saracens from 
their almost inaccessible fortress in the hills above 
the town. After burning the standing crops they 
returned to the King. 

Meanwhile Louis arrived at Sidon, where his first 
care was to give burial to the dead Christians whom 
he found still lying in great numbers in the town 



2i8 Saint Louis [1250- 

and along the shore. He caused long trenches to 
be dug, and hired peasants to collect the bodies and 
carry them thither on horses and camels. The work 
lasted five days; and every day from dawn to noon 
the King laboured himself with his attendants, gath- 
ering with his own hands the mutilated remains into 
vessels and sacks, and conveying them to the place 
of burial. The others remarked with wonder that 
he showed none of the natural signs of disgust and 
repugnance to the loathsome task ; for the corpses 
were old and already fetid. When the trenches 
were full the Archbishop of Tyre read the burial 
service over them, stopping his nose with his vest- 
ments against the stench ; so did the other prelates, 
and all except the King. The Archbishop in spite 
of his precautions fell ill and died three days 
afterwards. 

The King then began to fortify Sidon, without 
interruption from the enemy, enclosing it with a 
wall strengthened by towers and ditches. The 
Queen having given birth to a daughter, who was 
named Blanche, came from Jaffa by sea to join him. 
The Christians were comforted at this time by a 
false report of the capture of Bagdad by the Tar- 
tars. Messengers arrived also from the Prince of 
Trebizond, requesting the King to send him a lady 
of his Court to wife. Louis answered that there 
were none with him ; but that he should ask the 
Emperor of Constantinople, who was of the lineage 
of France, to give him one of his kinswomen ; which 
he afterwards did. 

The affairs of France, deprived of the prudent 



12541 The Sojoium in Palestine 219 

head and vigorous hand which had guided their 
course, began to call for the sovereign's return. 
Danger gathered in the south and in the north ; and 
owing to the illness of Alphonso the chief direction 
fell to the Count of Anjou, whose rash, ambitious 
temper led him deeper into difficulty. Troubles in 
Gascony, which Simon of Montfort, ill supported 
from home, could not suppress, brought the King of 

England himself into that country. He took 

AD 

the opportunity of renewing his connections 

and intrigues in Poitou and Normandy ; and ^ 

having arranged a marriage for his eldest son with 
the sister of the King of Castile, seemed to be pre- 
paring an attempt to regain his old losses ; to which 
the time was sufficiently favourable, had his capacity 
or inclination run with it. 

The dispute between the half-brothers of Dam- 
pierre and Avesnes has been related already, and the 
settlement which was made by Louis before his cru- 
sade. The quarrel was renewed a few years later, 
when, William of Dampierre having been killed in a 
tourney,* the family of Avesnes broke the award, 
and claimed a partition of Flanders. They were 
supported by their brother-in-law William, Count of 
Holland, who had been elected King of the Romans 
and so became suzerain of Hainault. Pretending a 
refusal of homage he deprived the Countess Marga- 
ret, who took the side of Dampierre, of her fiefs in 
the Empire, and authorised John of Avesnes to 
occupy Hainault. Both parties called in the help of 
their kinsmen and friends. The Bishops of Cologne 

* In April, A.D. 1251. 



220 Saint Louis [1250- 

and Liege, the Dukes of Brabant and Guelders, and 

other German princes who recognised William, joined 

with Avesnes ; Margaret was assisted by the Counts 

of Bar and Saint Paul and a number of French 

barons. In a battle fought near Walcheren the party 

of Dampierre was defeated with great slaugh- 

ter. Thirteen thousand French and Flemish 

5J> fgii . Qyy ^^^ John of Dampierre with the 

, , Count of Bar and all their chief allies re- 
I2th . , 1 1 1 • -111 

mamed wounded and prisoners m the hands 

of John of Avesnes, who, while he spared his moth- 
er's subjects in the rout, ordered no quarter to be 
given to the French. 

Margaret, after attempting in vain to make terms 
with the victors, urged the people of Flanders to 
prolong resistance, while she went to seek succour in 
France. She approached the Count of Anjou and 
tempted him with the offer of Hainault for himself. 
Lured by this prize he assembled a considerable 
army, with which he entered Flanders ; afterwards 
he received the submission of Hainault, and then re- 
turned, leaving garrisons in the towns. Early next 

year William of Holland marched in great 
AD • . , . . . 

force to repair his brother-in-law's injuries 

^^ and his own. Charles met him near Douay ; 
but a battle was averted by the mediation of the 
Count of Blois and other barons in the French army, 
who were related to the family of Avesnes : a truce 
was arranged for a time, during which things were 
to remain as they were. 

The news of the disturbances and dangers which 
threatened his realm was brought to Louis, together 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 221 

with urgent entreaties from the French Council for 
his immediate return. The Christians of Palestine, 
placed in present security by the fortification of 
their cities, no longer pressed him to remain. After 
debating the matter and considering it with prayer 
and supplication for Divine guidance, he took his 
decision to depart. Calling Joinville he bade the 
Legate, who stood by his side, declare his purpose. 
" Seneschal," said the Legate, " the King is much 
pleased with your service, and very willing to pursue 
your gain and honour. And to set your mind at 
ease, he bids me tell you that he has made his pre- 
parations to return to France at the coming Easter." 
" God send he may do his will," answered Joinville. 
Afterwards the Legate took Joinville to his lodging. 
When they were alone he grasped his hands and be- 
gan to weep. " Seneschal," he said as soon as he 
could speak, " I rejoice and give thanks to God that 
the King and you and the rest are escaping from the 
great dangers in which you have been here. But I 
am sorely grieved that I must leave your holy com- 
pany, and go to the Court of Rome, to dwell with 
the unfaithful people that are there." A strange 
state of things, that a prince of the Church should 
shun the company of his brethren and the supreme 
seat of Christendom, and seek righteousness and 
good conversation in the camp of a king ! 

As Easter approached, Louis fitted out such ships 
as he had, thirteen in all, in the port of Acre, whither 
he had sent on before his wife and children. He 
left a hundred knights behind for the defence of Pal- 
estine. The Legate also was determined to stay for 



222 Saint Louis 



[1250- 



another year and spend his remaining money in add- 
ing to the fortifications of Acre, that he might re- 
turn with an empty purse and a good name. The 
clergy, barons, and people of the country escorted 
the King to his ship in procession, and took leave of 
him with sadness and tears. He obtained by the 
Legate's special grace permission for the Host to be 
carried on board his ship — which had never been 
granted before to the greatest princes — not only for 
the sake of his own devotions, but in order that any 
who died on the voyage might not be deprived of 
the last sacrament. And in other ways his diligence 
was shown to minister to the needs of the sick and 
wounded and to comfort their infirmity. 

Setting sail from Acre on Saint Mark's 

AD 

day they made a course to Cyprus. A fog 

^ , coming down from the island, the royal 
, shipmen mistook their bearings and ran the 
vessel on a sandspit. When she struck there 
was a panic. The passengers ran together, and were 
not reassured to see the sailors clapping their hands 
and crying out that they were all dead men. There 
was a shout for the galleys which followed to come 
up and take off the King, but they did not venture 
to approach ; which was fortunate, since certainly 
they would have been swamped by the terrified 
crowd leaping in ; for the great ship carried eight 
hundred souls. 

The master of the mariners took a sounding, and 
discovering the ship to be in deep water, though fast, 
went to tell the King. He found him prostrated in 
prayer before the Host, which was kept in a tent on 



1254] The Sojourn in Palestine 223 

the bridge, whither he had gone when he heard they 
were on the point of sinking. The Queen showed 
equal courage : when the nurses asked her, should 
they wake the children, " No," she answered, " let 
them go to God sleeping." Their calmness soothed 
the fears of the rest. Anchors were cast out for the 
night ; and in the morning they found themselves 
off a rocky and dangerous shore. Divers were sent 
down and reported that part of the keel had been 
broken away. The mariners advised the King to 
leave the vessel and enter another, for the timbers 
were sprung, and she would probably be unable to 
stand the sea, even if she were got afloat. He asked 
his counsellors, who said that in such a matter the 
opinion of the sailors must be followed. Turning 
again to the latter he bade them tell him, would they 
leave the ship, were she their own and filled with 
their merchandise. They answered, no ; they would 
run the risk ; but for him it was different ; he had no 
motive to put his life and his family in danger. " I 
have heard your opinion," said Louis, "and that of 
my own people ; and I will tell you mine, which is 
this. If I leave the ship, there are five hundred per- 
sons and more on board, who fearing the danger — 
for all of them love their lives as well as I do mine 
— will remain in Cyprus and perhaps never be able 
to return home. Therefore I would rather commit 
myself and my wife and children into the hand of 
God than cause such injury to so great a number." 
Accordingly they set themselves to work the ship 
off, and succeeding by help of wind and oars put 
into port to repair and provision. How true was the 



224 Saint Louis [1250- 

King's apprehension was shown by a rich knight of 
his company, who fearing to adventure farther re- 
mained in Cyprus, and was there a year and a half 
before he could get a passage home. The poorer 
people would have fared much worse. 

The perils of the voyage were not yet over. Be- 
fore they got clear of Cyprus a gale of wind arose, 
which threatened to drive them back on shore, 
though five anchors were thrown out. The Queen 
prom.ised a silver ship to Saint Nicholas, and saw in 
the falling of the tempest an answer to her vow. 

Again, a fire broke out in the Queen's chamber by 
the carelessness of her tirewoman, who left a linen 
veil hanging over a lighted candle. It was stayed 
by Margaret's presence of mind ; for she awoke as 
the flames were spreading, and seizing the burning 
stuff in her hands, threw it into the sea, and crushed 
out the smouldering sheets. The incident much 
disturbed Louis, who from that time ordered all 
fires on board, except the great galley fire, to be ex- 
tinguished every night, and would not go to bed 
until he was assured that this was done. 

Joinville relates how the King discoursing with 
him pointed the moral of perils of the sea. " Sene- 
schal, God has shown us His great power, since one 
of His little winds, not one of the four master winds, 
went near to drown the King of France, his wife and 
children and all his company. We should give Him 
love and thanks for our deliverance from danger. 
The Saints say," he went on, "that such tribulations 
and great sicknesses and other persecutions which 
happen to men are warnings from our Lord. For as 



12541 The Sojo2irn in Palestine 225 

God says to those who escape from sickness — ' You 
see that I might have caused you to die, had I 
willed,' so perhaps He says to us, 'You see that, had 
I willed, I might have drowned you all.' And we 
ought to examine ourselves, for fear there may be 
something in us which displeases Him ; and if we 
find any such thing, to put it away. For if we do 
not so, after the warning He has given us. He will 
strike us with death or some great misfortune, and 
body and soul will be lost. The Saint says, * Lord 
God, why do You threaten us ? For if You destroy 
us all You will not be the poorer, and if You gain us 
all You will not be the richer.' From this we may 
see, says the Saint, that God's menaces towards us 
are not to increase His own profit or prevent His 
damage ; but merely for the great love He has to us 
He wakes us by His menaces, that we may see our 
faults clearly and put away from us that which dis- 
pleases Him. Let us so do," said the King, "and 
we shall do wisely." 

On the voyage they came to the island of Pan- 
tellaria, inhabited by Saracens subject to Tunis. 
Three galleys were sent to visit it and buy fruit 
for the royal children. They were long in re- 
turning, and the sailors began to murmur and beg 
the King not to wait ; for they were between Sicily 
and Tunis, both unfriendly ; and the Saracens, they 
said, had seized the boats with their crews, and 
would presently fall upon the ship unless they 
escaped under press of sail. Louis refused to think 
of deserting his men and ordered the ship's head to be 
set for land. As they drew in to shore the galleys 



2 26 Saint Louis ti250- 

issued from the harbour. It appeared that they 
had been detained by six of those on board, sons of 
citizens of Paris, who would not leave eating the 
fruit which grew abundantly in the gardens. The 
King was enraged at their gluttony, which had caused 
the tack to be altered, by which, as it turned out, 
several days were lost ; and in spite of their howls 
and tears and offers of ransom had them put in the 
ship's boat, the usual place of confinement for crim- 
inals, where they remained in great discomfort for 
the rest of the voyage. 

After ten weeks at sea they came to the port of 
Hyferes in Provence, belonging to the King's brother. 
Louis desired at first to sail on to Aigues Mortes 
and land in his own dominions, but yielded to the 
Queen and his companions, who were all anxious to 
be ashore. Disembarking, they remained at Hyeres 
awhile to procure horses for the journey to Paris. 
It was here that the Abbot of Cluny coming to the 
King with a suit, as Joinville relates, presented him 
with two palfreys, worth five hundred pounds. The 
next day the King dealt with his business, giving 
him long and attentive audience. Afterwards Join- 
ville asked whether he had not heard the Abbot 
with more favour on account of the palfreys given 
the day before. Louis considered for a time, then 
answered, "^ Truly, yes." " Do you know why I 
asked you?" said Joinville. "Why?" said the 
King. " Because it is my advice to you that when 
you return to France you should forbid your coun- 
cillors to take presents from those who have busi- 
ness in your court. For be sure that, if they take 



1254] The Sojotcrn in Palestine 227 

them, they will hear the givers with greater atten- 
tion and good will, as you have the Abbot of 
Cluny." Louis approved these observations at the 
time, and remembered them afterwards, as appeared 
in the instructions issued to his officers. 

During his stay, having heard the fame of a 
Preaching Friar called Hugh, he called him to his 
presence. The friar came, followed by a crowd of 
devotees, and preached before the King a sermon 
which did not flatter his audience. He inveighed 
against the crowd of monks which he saw at Court, 
comparing them to fish out of water, and saying that 
they would be better in their cloisters, where they 
would live at any rate more frugally. Then turning 
to Louis he declared that he had read the Scriptures 
and also the writings of the heathen, and never found 
in any of them that kingdom or lordship had been 
lost or changed its master except through the cor- 
ruption of justice. " Therefore let the King take 
heed when he goes to France to give his people 
good and speedy justice, so that our Lord may suf- 
fer him to keep his realm in peace all his life long." 
Louis wished to retain the preacher near him, but 
he refused all offers, practising his own precepts. 
There were other places, he said, where God would 
be better pleased to see him than in a king's house. 
He departed next day and went to Marseilles, where 
it was reported he worked miracles. 

From Hyferes the royal party travelled to Aix ; 
thence to Beaucaire, and so northward to Paris, 
which was reached in September, after six years' ab- 
sence. Before entering the capital they visited the 



2 28 Saint Louis [1250-1254] 

shrine of St. Denis to return thanks for their safety 

and make rich offerings to the church. It is related 

that the towns received them everywhere 
AD ... 

■ * with festivals and reioicins^, for the gladness 

TZKA 

men had to see the good King and the good 
Queen again ; especially the citizens of Paris made 
such a feast as never had been made before. 

Amid the general joy and salutations of his people 
Louis appeared sad and depressed. The time of 
trial, the necessity of action, that had braced his 
spirit and sustained his faith, was over ; and he could 
not but reflect that he returned to his kingdom a 
broken and defeated man, having spent a vast treas- 
ure and wrecked a fine army to little other effect 
than enhancement of the power and glory of the In- 
fidel. " If I alone bore the shame and the calamity," 
he replied to a bishop who reproached him for his 
gloom, " I could suffer it ; but alas ! all Christendom 
has been brought to confusion through me." The 
remonstrance, however, was not without fruit; and 
finding solace in the services of the Church, he re- 
sumed after a time his accustomed cheerful temper. 
At first he declared that his pilgrimage was not fin- 
ished but put off for a season, and a cross was car- 
ried before him as he journeyed from the coast. 
But the postponement was fated to be long. There 
was much to do both at home and abroad ; abuses 
to correct, disputes to settle, enemies to ward off or 
appease; matters which could not be satisfied and 
arranged except by assiduous care and the slow 
influence of time. 





MANFRED, KING OF SICILY HUGH, DUKE OF BURGUNDY 

CHAPTER IX 

FOREIGN POLICY 



L 



I 2 54- I 270 

GUIS remained in his kingdom and at peace 
for the next sixteen years, that is, to within 
two months of his death. During this time 
the French monarchy was at a height of power and 
reputation, both at home and in Europe, to which 
it had not attained since the time of Charlemagne. 
This may be attributed in part to the results of suc- 
cessful war in the two previous reigns and in the 
earlier years of the present. But beyond this the 
augmentation was owed not to any deep, designing 
policy of the King, nor to such eager, inexorable 
ambition as had animated his grandfather, but 
rather to the respect and veneration which was 
earned by the simple holiness of his life and the 
manifest integrity of all his actions. The considera- 
tion which he enjoyed in his lifetime and bequeathed 
to his descendants is a bright example of the truth 
that men are attracted and subdued by the sight of 
sanctity and moral goodness, not less than by the 
greatest splendour of warlike achievement. The in- 
stinct therefore was just, which led his people after- 
wards to regard him as the heroic type and ideal of 

229 



230 Saint Louis [1254- 

their rulers, so that under no title was a French King 
ever nearer to his subjects' hearts than as a " son of 
Saint Louis." 

His conduct during this latter part of his reign 
may be considered under three heads : in respect to 
his deahngs with other princes ; in respect to do- 
mestic administration and government ; and in re- 
spect to his personal life and behaviour. In all these 
he appears to have been impelled, inspired, and 
guided by the same motives and sentiments and 
rules and principles of action, namely, by those 
proper to a devout and faithful Christian. Such a 
character, indeed, he may be judged to have chosen 
and aimed at before everything else, and to have 
attained, as far as any man can be judged from the 
proofs which history affords. 

A fair field for aggrandisement was opened through 
the disputes of the great vassals of the Crown, and 
the intestine quarrels which agitated so many parts 
of Europe at this period. It would have been pos- 
sible to foment these disorders, and taking one side 
or the other, to draw advantage and dominion to 
France on several borders. But no man was ever 
freer than Louis from the reproach of the historian, 
who has said that sovereigns in general " are not so 
solicitous that the laws be executed, justice admin- 
istered, and order preserved within their own king- 
doms, as they are that all three may be disturbed 
and confounded amongst their neighbours ; as if their 
religion were nothing but policy enough to make all 
other kingdoms but their own miserable." * Con- 



* Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, ii., 420. 



1270] Foreign Policy 231 

trary to this kind of policy, Louis endeavoured con- 
stantly to appease the disputes of other rulers with 
their subjects or with one another. Peace was his 
great desire for all, not only for himself: he was 
above all things a peacemaker. "When he heard 
there was war between princes outside his realm," 
writes a contemporary chronicler, " he sent solemn 
embassies to reconcile them, at great expense." 
" He frequently sent envoys, wise and discreet men," 
writes another, " to make peace and concord between 
his neighbours, and so bent them to agree." " He 
was a man," says Joinville, " who took the greatest 
trouble in the world to make peace between his sub- 
jects, and especially between the great men and 
princes in his neighbourhood." Some of his Coun- 
cil, it is related, deprecated his efforts, saying that if 
he let them go on fighting they would impoverish 
themselves, and be less able to attack him. " No," 
replied the King, " for if the princes, my neighbours, 
see that I leave them to fight with one another, they 
may take counsel together and say, ' The King leaves 
us to fight through malice.' So it will fall out that 
they will attack me on account of the hate they will 
bear me, and I shall be the loser, without reckoning 
that I shall gain God's hatred, Who says, ' Blessed 
are peacemakers.' " 

He extinguished the war in Flanders soon after his 
return, of which it had been in part the cause ; 
the more easily as the death of William of * * 
Holland deprived the House of Avesnes of ^ ' 
their chief support. The former settlement 
was reafifirmed, that Hainault should fall to Avesnes 



232 Saint Louis [1254- 

and Flanders to Dampierre. Charles of Anjou was 

compelled to renounce the donation of Hainault, 

which had brought him into the quarrel, and 

Y^ ' to be content with a payment of a hundred 

and sixty thousand pounds, charged on the 

Flemish revenues of Countess Margaret, who had 

invited him. 

A harder matter was the old dispute with the Eng- 
lish King, which had its root in the inveterate de- 
sire of the Plantagenets to recover their continental 
dominion. This ambition, never eradicated, was now 
lulled for a time and laid to sleep, only to wake 
again seventy years afterwards and inflict much war 
and misery on France. When the King returned, 
Henry of England was still in Gascony, having sub- 
dued his rebels after allying himself by marriage 
to the King of Castile, on whose help they relied. 
Wishing to escape the long sea voyage, and also to 
see the great towns of France, which he had never 
visited, and the King's chapel at Paris, he asked and 
obtained leave to travel home that way. He came 
to Orleans, being received by royal command 
with great pomp and festivity in the country 
through which he passed ; thence to Char- 
tres, where Louis met him. The Kings embraced 
affectionately and had much conversation together. 
Four sisters, the Queens of France and England, the 
Countesses of Cornwall and Anjou, and their mother, 
the Dowager of Provence, were again united in this 
meeting after long separation. Attended by an im- 
mense cavalcade they proceeded to Paris. The city 
adorned itself to welcome them and filled its streets 



1270] - Foreign Policy 233 

with music and rejoicing. Every quarter was de- 
corated with flowers by day and illuminations at 
night. The University, where many English studied, 
suspended its lectures that the scholars might take 
part in the reception. Louis entertained his guest 
magnificently, and himself escorted him to visit the 
Holy Chapel and the relics and other churches of 
the city, where they made offerings and prayers. 
Afterwards they dined in public at the Old Temple. 
" Never was so noble and splendid a banquet in 
the days of Assuer, Arthur, or Charlemagne," says 
the English chronicler. Louis sat in the place of 
honour, as first of earthly kings ; England was on 
his right, Navarre on his left. He would have 
yielded the middle seat to his guest, but Henry re- 
fused it, saying, "You are my lord." Below them 
sat twenty-five great dukes and counts, twelve 
bishops, and a vast number of barons and knights. 
Eighteen countesses were present. All the doors 
stood open and unguarded, that anyone who chose 
might enter. After the feast the King of England 
distributed silver cups, silken girdles, and other pre- 
sents to the French nobles. He remained eight 
days, admiring the buildings of Paris, the great 
bridge, and the houses of four stories faced with 
plaster. The crowds which flocked to see him flat- 
tered his pride, and were charmed by his liberality. 
As the King's guest, and husband of the Queen's 
sister, he enjoyed a reflection of their popularity and 
a favour among the French which he did not find at 
home. He was well pleased to be exalted in the eyes 
of his own people, whom their sovereign's triumph 



234 Saint Louis [1254- 

gratified as their own. Before parting Louis 
expressed his desire to be friends, dwelhng on the 
close kinship between their children, and lamenting 
that the feeling of his barons prevented him from 
satisfying the English claims of territorial restitution. 
Though these claims delayed a complete reconcil- 
iation, the truce was maintained and prolonged, and 
Henry refused, after his visit, to aid John of Avesnes 
in Flanders. He continued, however, for some time 
longer to urge his rights, without any result, except 
that the French King took steps to strengthen his 
authority in Normandy, fortifying castles and towns, 
setting trustworthy persons in office, and marrying 
his Norman wards to Frenchmen. But where one 
party was bent on peace and the other could gain 
nothing by war, a way of settlement was found. A 
solemn embassy came from England in the autumn 
of 1257; the Bishops of Worcester and Winchester, 
Peter of Savoy, the Earls of Leicester and Norfolk 
and others. They recited the deprivation of his 
ancient rights which their master suffered ; the 
enmity and bloodshed caused through the last fifty 
years, and still threatening in the future ; the loss 
to both kingdoms, and the expediency of closing 
the feud, which could best be done, they said, by re- 
storing the provinces taken from King John. The 
French Princes and the barons of the Council re- 
garded such a surrender as impossible, and said so 
in scornful and impatient terms. But the King 
answered mildly that he would refer the question to 
his Parliament next Easter. The envoys returned, 
leaving the Abbot of Westminster to negotiate. 




^t-t^^ws 



1270] Foreign Policy 235 

Their demand had been put forward, not in the 

hope that it would be granted, but to clear the way 

to a compromise, which Louis alone in his kingdom 

was ready to make. A new embassy came in the 

spring and brought the matter to an issue. 

The treaty was made at Paris. Perigord, "•^• 

Limousin, and part of Saintonge were re- ^^ ' 

. May 

stored to the English, besides the reversion r^ 

of Agenais and Quercy, which being ancient 
dependencies of Guyenne, granted to the Counts 
of Toulouse, would lawfully escheat to the suzerain 
after the death of the Countess of Poitiers, heiress 
of that line. Certain payments of money were also 
promised on various accounts. On his part the 
English King renounced his claims to Normandy 
and all the other provinces conquered from his 
House ; and promised to pay homage for Gascony 
and Guyenne. Thus at length the greater share of 
the Plantagenet dominions was secured to the 
French Crown by cession as well as conquest. 

The treaty was carried against the opposition of 
the French barons. Their arguments have been 
reported. "Sire, we marvel much that you should 
be willing to give up to the King of England so great 
a part of your lands, which you and your fathers 
have conquered, and which his father lost by judg- 
ment of forfeiture. For if you hold that you have 
no right, we think that the restitution is not good, 
unless you restore all that was conquered ; and if 
you hold that you have right, we think that you 
lose that which you now restore." Louis replied 
that he knew the King of England had no right to 



236 Saint Louis [1254- 

the land, nor did he restore it as being bound to do 
so. "I do it to make love between my children and 
his, who are first cousins. It is fitting therefore 
that there should be peace between them, and that 
the kingdoms should not be wasted any longer and 
men spoil and slay one another and go down into 
hell. Besides I gain, great honour by this peace ; 
for the King of England enters my homage and be- 
comes my liege man, which he was not before." 

In spite of this justification it may be suspected 
that the concession was made on a point of con- 
science rather than of calculation. In any case it 
fitted with the consistent policy of Louis, and was 
not disadvantageous to his Crown. The surrender 
of outlying territories, neither rich nor populous, 
was balanced by the formal recognition of the King's 
right over nearly all the conquests of his predeces- 
sors ; by the submission of Gascony and Guyenne 
to his suzerainty ; and by the establishment of peace 
with England for the first time in half a century. 
The claim on Normandy was a constant menace as 
long as it was maintained. At the moment it was 
little to be feared in the hands of Henry, who was 
incapable and troubled at home. But a wiser and 
more warlike successor might be more favourably 
placed to enforce it. The recent election of Rich- 
ard of Cornwall to the Empire * suggested the 
thought of a new coalition, such as had threatened 
to destroy Philip Augustus. It was not prudent to 
reckon on a continuance of weakness and division in 
the adversaries, or of merit and good fortune in the 

* He was elected in the beginning of 1257. 



1270] Foreign Policy 237 

rulers of France. Two courses of policy were open ; 
to make a peaceful arrangement with the English 
King while his feebleness inclined him ; or to press 
the hour of advantage and drive him altogether 
from the realm. The latter was more dangerous 
and doubtful, even had it suited with the character 
of the King. 

The treaty having been ratified, Henry crossed 
into France in the winter of the following year with 
his Queen and a great train of nobility, and 
spent Christmas at Paris after paying hom- 
age for his duchy of Guyenne, The rejoic- 
ings of the visit were marred by the death of Louis, 

heir to the French Crown, in his sixteenth 

• AD 

year, a cause of grief to his parents and to * * 

all the world, for he was a prince of much , * 

T3.n~ 
promise. Henry assisted to bear the body 

. . uary 

to its funeral, and- remained in France till 

the following April. 

It is related that the inhabitants of the surren- 
dered provinces were deeply discontented at the 
change of rule ; and that the tradition of their 
resentment caused them to refuse many years after- 
wards to celebrate the feast-day dedicated to Louis 
when he died and was canonised. Be that as it may, 
they had good reason to complain that they were 
transferred from the mild and orderly dominion of 
the King to the weak, irregular government of Guy- 
enne, in which oppression was tempered by turbu- 
lence. 

Louis was no less pacific in dealing with his other 
neighbours, confirming their friendship by the 



238 Saint Louis [1254- 

marriages of his children. He balanced the English 

alliance with Castile by betrothing his eldest son 

to the daughter of Alphonso X. ; but the 

* * Prince's premature death prevented the con- 

^^ elusion of the marriage. The connection 

was renewed at the end of the reign, when the 

Princess Blanche was married to Ferdinand, 

AD. 

7^* heir of Castile, and became by him mother 

" of the Infants of Cerda, whose misfortunes 
are celebrated in Spanish history. 

The Kings of France and of Aragon had ancient 
conflicting pretensions to the suzerainty of terri- 
tories lying beyond their natural boundary of the 
Pyrenees and surrounded by each other's dominions. 
Barcelona, Roussillon, and other parts of Catalonia 
had fallen within the Spanish March of Charlemagne, 
and were still asserted to be fiefs of France, which 
had long ceased to exercise there even the shadow 
of authority. On the other side the House of Ara- 
gon claimed, through inheritance or cession, lordship 
over Beziers, Carcassonne, and most of the county 
of Toulouse. They had drawn their relations with 
Languedoc closer in the time of the heresy, support- 
ing the native magnates against the crusaders and 
receiving their homage. Since then they appeared 
tenacious of their right and disposed to take any 
opportunity of reviving it. But Languedoc was now 
brought by the result of war and treaty partly under 
the King's hand, partly under that of his brother, who 
had inherited Toulouse on the death of Count Ray- 
mond in 1249. The claims of Aragon were denied, 
but a settlement was effected in 1258. The two 



1270] Foreign Policy 239 

Kings mutually renounced their pretensions ; and to 
strengthen the peace a marriage was arranged be- 
tween Philip, second son of Louis and King after 
him, and Isabel, daughter of King James of Aragon. 
After this treaty the friendship of the kingdoms was 
not broken, though it was clouded for a moment six 
years later by a dispute of jurisdiction. An 
Aragonese embassy complained that the ■"■•■^• 
royal seneschal of Beaucaire had cited before ^ 

his court citizens of Montpellier, which their master 
claimed in full sovereignty, Louis did not admit 
the pretension, but answered graciously, expressing 
his regard for the King of Aragon, whose love he 
valued so much, he said, that rather than lose it he 
was willing to waive his right. He offered to sus- 
pend the action of his ofificer, and to submit the 
matter to the judgment of Cardinal Fulcodi, a Nar- 
bonese by birth. The ambassadors, who had begun 
by professing the greatest amity and respect, fell to 
reiterating and pressing their unreasonable demands, 
and finally uttered threats of war. But the King 
was not to be moved, and repeated his answer with 
the same graciousness as before. They departed ill 
content, but the conduct of their prince was more 
moderate than his language, and no attempt at force 
followed. 

By other marriages, of his daughter Isabel to the 
King of Navarre, of Margaret to the heir of Brabant, 
and of his son John to Yolande of Burgundy, Louis 
strengthened and secured the borders of his realm. 
He did not meddle in the affairs of Germany, except 
to favour and support the election of Alphonso of 



240 Saint Louis tl254- 

Castile to the Empire, as policy demanded, since 
the success of the other candidate, Richard of Corn- 
wall, would have reinforced the English con- 

A D 

■ * nection in Europe too much for safety. But 

^' both the rivals were contented with a nom- 
inal dignity, and the German princes, without a 
head or union among themselves, were occupied 
within their own borders, and were neither friends 
nor enemies to France. 

French neutrality, so long preserved, was infringed 
in the last stage of the struggle between the Popes 
and the House of Hohenstaufen. The hope of empire 
deserted that family with the death of Frederick II. 
and of his legitimate sons ; thus far the Apostolic 
See was victorious. But his bastard Manfred occu- 
pied the hereditary kingdoms of Naples and Sicily ; 
and his grandson Conradin remained alive, a seed 
from which the power and glory of the hated line 
might rise again and flourish. Unable to expel 
Manfred by their own force, the Popes offered his 
dominions to the princes of Europe at the price of 
conquest. Louis was too scrupulous to enforce so 
questionable a donation and refused it for himself 
or his children. Manfred indeed was in his eyes an 
outlaw. But the dormant right of Conradin stood 
in the way, and, even were that excluded, a previ- 
ous acceptance by the English Prince Edmund. 

Charles of Anion was less nice, and to him 

AD 

■ ' Pope Urban IV. transferred the gift. He 

^ was a prince whose restless spirit and ambi- 
tion overriding honesty resembled the disposition of 
his grandfather rather than that of his brother. He 



1270] Foreign Policy 241 

had already been the cause of trouble ; first by his 
enterprise in Flanders ; then by the eagerness with 
which he vindicated his authority in Provence and 
sought to extend it over the city of Marseilles, which 
twice revolted against him/" The persuasion of his 
wife, who saw her three sisters Queens, is said to have 
incited him further to seek a crown. By the Pope's 
support and by his brother's permission he gathered 
an army and treasure in France. The war was 
preached as a crusade, and the clergy were taxed to 
furnish it. He reached Italy by sea, and defeated 
Manfred, who was killed in battle.f But his exac- 
tions and the faults of his followers raised rebellion 
in the conquered kingdoms; and the young Con- 
radin, coming from Germany, reclaimed his inher- 
itance in arms. Fortune deserted the bold 

A D 

attempt. Conradin was beaten in the field, '7^* 

taken prisoner, and executed publicly at 
Naples together with the principal of his allies. 

Authorities differ, how far Louis gave aid or coun- 
tenance to this undertaking. It is fair to say that 
he had not the power to command his brother, who 
was independent in his principality of Provence; 
that the business was backed by the whole authority 
of Rome ; that, though Conradin had rights to be 
respected, they were never in force. The attack was 
on Manfred, who had dispossessed him ; and Charles 
could reasonably be regarded not as the invader of 
a legitimate sovereign, but as champion of the 
Church against a usurping ruler and an heretical 

* In 1257 and 1262. 

fThe battle of Beneventum, February 26, 1266. 



242 Saint Louis tl254- 

and rebellious people. The King could not foresee 
how the matter would turn out ; or that Charles, by 
murdering his prisoner and the lawful heir, would 
bring such infamy on his name as no other prince of 
his race has incurred. 

But to put this question aside and return to the 
general conduct of Louis, it can be said that his 
justness of mind and temper, his love of peace and 
his strict regard for right, entitled him to become the 
arbitrator of all his neighbours. Returning from Pal- 
estine he found the Duke of Brittany at issue with 
Theobald of Navarre and Champagne, son and suc- 
cessor of the prince* who has been often mentioned in 
this narrative. It was his first task to reconcile them. 
Theobald having asked his daughter in marriage, he 
refused to let the matter proceed till the dispute 
with Brittany was settled. " For it shall never be 
said," he declared, " that I marry my children by 
disinheriting my barons." When this was reported 
to the King of Navarre he consented to satisfy the 
Duke's just claim, and the marriage was thereupon 
concluded. 

During these years the King also mediated suc- 
cessfully between the Count of Chalons and his 
son, the Count of Burgundy ; between the Kings 
of England and Navarre ; between the latter and 
the Count of Chalons ; between the Counts of Bar 
and Luxemburg ; the disputants in each case being 
persuaded to stop the predatory war which had 
already broken out, and to commit the settlement 

* Theobald IV. of Champagne and I. of Navarre died at Pampe- 
luna July 8, 1253. 



1270] Foreign Policy 243 

of their differences to his decision. Even the Greek 
Emperor, Michael Palseologus, invited his interven- 
tion in the negotiations which he was carrying on 
with the Pope for the union of the Churches, offer- 
ing to accept him as referee in the debate. 

But the most striking proof of his reputation is 
afforded by the agreement of the English King and 
his barons to make him the judge of their quarrel. 
No monarch could strive to compose the affairs of 
his own realm with more zeal, diligence, and integ- 
rity of purpose, than Louis applied to assuaging the 
dissensions of a neighbouring and lately hostile 
state. He had already concerned himself in the 
matter for some years before the arbitration. At 
the time that the treaty of Paris was ratified, the 
leagued barons, who were preparing to take strong 
measures against the intolerable misrule of Henry 
and the rapacity of his foreign favourites, deputed 
envoys to the French King to bespeak his 
favour or neutrality. By the provisions "•■'-'• 
passed in the Parliament of Oxford the same ^ ' 

year they drew to themselves the chief pre- ^ 

rogatives and authority of government. The for- 
eigners were expelled, and crossing into France got 
a cold welcome from the King, who refused at first 
to allow them passage through his dominions. But 
Henry, in the visit which followed, persuaded his 
brother-in-law, no doubt, that he had been wronged. 
Louis himself had felt the encroachment of powerful 
vassals. He had a high opinion of kingly right, which 
the tradition and experience of his House taught him 
to regard as the bulwark of peace and order, and he 



244 Saint Loitis [1254- 

was shocked to see it abrogated and overthrown. Ac- 
cordingly, when Henry on his return repudiated the 
provisions of Oxford, he was promised, and received, 
succour from France. In the struggle of arms and 
intrigue which ensued Louis endeavoured on several 
occasions to mediate ; but the aims and interest of 
the opposing parties diverged too much for a settle- 
ment. It is great testimony to his fame that, in 
spite of the leaning he had shown towards the prin- 
ciple at any rate of the King's contention, the barons 
engaged themselves at last to accept his arbitration. 
The court was held at Amiens in January of 1264. 
The King and Queen of England attended with their 
son and the Archbishop of Canterbury and others 
of their party ; on the other side a great number of the 
confederated barons. Louis heard the pleadings and 
arguments, and after considering them at length with 
his Council delivered judgment. He held that the 
effect of the provisions of Oxford was to deprive the 
King of England of his crown and whole authority. 
He pronounced therefore that they were null and void, 
the oaths which sanctioned them having been an- 
nulled already by the Pope ; that the acts done under 
them should be revoked ; and the castles which had 
been given up as their guarantee restored. That the 
King should appoint his own officers and council- 
lors ; should be free to employ foreigners if he chose 
without consent of the barons ; and generally should 
enjoy the power and prerogative which he possessed 
in former times. But the charters, liberties, and cus- 
toms valid in England hitherto were not to be in- 
fringed. There should be a mutual amnesty and 



1270] Foreign Policy 245 

abstention from future encroachment on either side. 
Such a decision was to be expected from the King 
of France. He respected existing rights, which the 
provisions destroyed. He knew the evils of anarchy 
and the disorders of a turbulent baronage better than 
those which are caused by an ill-governing monarch ; 
and scarcely believed perhaps that his brother of Eng- 
land, whose prayers and almsgivings he admired so 
much, was rapacious, faithless, and irregular towards 
his subjects. Moreover, the character of his nation, 
opposite to the English, has always set the benefits 
of authority higher than those of freedom. 

Fortunately for the liberties of England the barons 
did not abide by his verdict. He did not, however, 
relax his efforts for peace, or withhold his protection 
from either side in its hour of disaster. He assisted 
the fugitive English Queen with men and money ; and 
after the defeat of the reformers he urged and per- 
suaded Henry to grant pardon on easy terms to the 
widow and sons of Simon of Montfort, their leader. 

In the later years of his reign Louis was the gen- 
eral refuge of the injured or oppressed. The Gas- 
cons appeal to him, instead of to their own sovereign, 
to save them from the barons who plunder them. 
The merchants of Aragon, suffering from English 
pirates, seek and obtain redress through his inter- 
vention. The people of Burgundy and Lorraine, to 
whom he had given peace, " so loved and obeyed 
him," writes Joinville, "that I have seen them come 
to plead causes of dispute which they had among 
themselves before the King in his court at Rheims 
or Paris or Orleans." 





THE COUNT OF FLANDERS 



ENQUERRAND OF COUCY 



CHAPTER X 

INTERNAL AFFAIRS 
1 254-1 270 

IT would not be within the scope of the present 
work to examine at length, or with an exact 
inquiry into details, the constitution of govern- 
ment in France during this period, its nature, 
changes, and development ; to trace the steps by 
which royal authority was increased ; to follow the 
growth of the King's courts, the spread of the King's 
justice, and the extension of his administrative pow- 
ers. Louis was little concerned in all this. His 
own greatness, the enhancement of his sovereign 
supremacy, was the last thing he aimed at. But 
while he desired that his people should be governed 
well and orderly, that justice should be done and 
wrong repressed and grievances remedied, his en- 
deavours directed to this end drew after them unre- 
garded consequences. He neither inaugurated nor 
even consciously developed a system of government ; 
but taking that which was left by his predecessors 
carried it on in good faith and uprightness, using 
the power which he found in his hands for what he 

346 



1254-70] Internal Affairs 247 

held to be the glory of God and the happiness of 
his subjects ; and by this means perhaps served the 
monarchy better than if he had set himself to in- 
crease its power and widen its effective control, 
without regarding the rights of others. Of his own 
rights he was tenacious, as became a King appointed 
to rule by Heaven, which he esteemed himself to 
be ; but did not intend or desire to stretch them be- 
yond existing limits ; and if the plant of royal pre- 
rogative grew and flourished and sent branches 
abroad, it was rather due to an innate principle of 
life and expansion than to any care or cultivation of 
his. 

" Fair son," he said, as he lay on a sick-bed, to his 
eldest son Louis, " I pray you make yourself loved 
by the people of your realm : for I would rather a 
Scotsman came from Scotland and governed them 
well and loyally, than that you should govern them 
ill." His own conduct was suited to this profession, 
as the words of a chronicler writing some years after 
his death bear witness. " Long time King Louis 
governed the realm of France well and in peace, like 
the wise and loyal man he was, without taxing the 
commons and townsfolk more than reason. Very 
rich and peaceful was France in his time." 

The chief public care which occupied him was the 
good administration of justice, the first blessing per- 
haps which a strong and regular government bestows, 
as its corruption is the worst and most odious evil. 
In his reign the Parliament of France, a meeting of 
the great persons of the kingdom, which besides de- 
bating and advising about affairs of state used to 



248 Saint Louis [1254- 

judge appeals and other considerable cases pertain- 
ing to the King's jurisdiction, began to be convoked 
regularly at Paris for the latter purpose three or four 
times a year, at Candlemas, Whitsuntide, and All 
Saints, and sometimes at the Nativity of the Virgin. 
This change of habit and function brought on an- 
other in the constitution of the assembly. Not only 
the high ofificers but the secretaries and privy coun- 
cillors of the Crown were already accustomed to sit 
there by the side of prelates and barons. Being for 
the most part men versed in canon or civil law they 
drew the judicial business of Parliament into their 
own hands ; and as this increased over the rest 
and the sittings were multiplied and prolonged, the 
magnates lay and ecclesiastic, who had no aptitude 
and no liking for such work, withdrew or were no 
longer summoned, except on special occasions when 
matters important to the realm or their own priv- 
ileges were to be considered. The lawyers were left 
in possession ; and Parliament started to become the 
supreme court of justice in France, instead of the 
great Council representing the powerful members of 
the realm. 

All professional bodies, and most of all the legal, 
are inclined to enlarge as much as possible the 
range of their activity ; and, with the dominance of 
that caste in Parliament, the scope of jurisdic- 
tion was extended by assertion of the right to hear 
appeals from the courts of the vassals. Such right 
of revision was claimed and exercised during the 
reign in cases from Guyenne and Brittany, to men- 
tion no others. The reputation of the King and of 



1270] Internal Affairs 249 

the councillors who directed his judgment made it 
the more easily allowed. 

A more frequent resort to the courts was induced 
also by two ordinances which Louis enacted, not to 
that end but in his love of peace and justice. It 
was still the custom of the age, inherited from more 
lawless times, that even the lesser barons should set- 
tle their quarrels by private war and ravage of one 
another's land. The King limited and in the end 
forbade this practice, which was discouraged by the 
Church and a great hindrance to the prosperity of 
the realm. By another custom equally ancient it was 
allowed to either party in a suit to contest the 
judge's decision, appealing not to a superior court 
but to the issue of single combat. The origin of 
such duels was supposed to be in a reference to 
Divine judgment ; but Pope Innocent IV. had al- 
ready denounced them as a temptation of 
God. Moreover, they were frequently per- * * 
verted to the advantage of the rich and ^" 

powerful, who in disputes with poor or humble ad- 
versaries were able to gain the best champions to 
fight in their quarrel. For these reasons the King 

ordained with consent of his Parliament that 

A D 

the appeal to combat should be abolished, ' * 

and cases proven by the oath of witnesses, 
documents, pleading, and the other customary meth- 
ods. The consequence of the ordinance was that if 
a suitor were discontented with the verdict his only 
remedy lay in appeal to the higher, that is, the royal 
courts. It was impossible, however, to enforce these 
two salutary measures beyond the royal domain ; 



250 Saint Louis [1254- 

and the first was opposed even there as an infraction 
of feudal privilege. The evil was repressed but by 
no means destroyed, and sprang up again in subse- 
quent reigns. 

'■ .Louis was present regularly at the sessions of Par- 
liament. In addition he occupied himself contin- 
ually in hearing and deciding cases and complaints, 
in which he was assisted by the men of experience 
and integrity whom he kept near him. " When he 
returned from chapel," writes Joinville, "he used to 
send for us, and seating himself on the foot of his 
bed, while we sat round, asked if there were any 
cases which we could not settle without him. When 
we named them, he would call the suitors before 
him and ask them, ' Why do you not take what my 
people offer you ? ' " When they said it was not 
enough he would urge them to accept a fair and 
reasonable compromise. " Often he went after mass 
to the wood of Vincennes," the writer continues, 
" where he sat under an oak and we round him. 
There all who had business came to speak to him 
without hindrance. Then he asked, ' Has anyone a 
suit?'; and those who had suits rose up. Then he 
said, ' Keep quiet and your cases shall be judged in 
order.' Then he called my lord Peter des Fontaines 
and my lord Geoffrey de Villete and said to one of 
them, ' Judge me this case.' And when he saw any- 
thing to amend in the pleading of those who spoke, 
whether on his own side or another's, he would 
amend it out of his own mouth. I have seen him in 
summer-time come to his garden in Paris to deliver 
judgments, dressed in a coat of camlet and a stuff 



1270] Internal Affaii^s 251 

surcoat without sleeves, with a scarf of black cendal 
round his shoulders, well combed and unbonneted, 
wearing a cap with a white peacock's feather on his 
head. He had a carpet laid for us to sit round him, 
and all the people came who had business before 
him. There he caused judgments to be rendered in 
the same way I have told you of in the wood of 
Vincennes." 

Louis gave these public audiences twice a week, 
that access might not be denied to the poorest. He 
stood for the weak against the strong and for others 
against himself, sometimes arguing on the opposite 
side when crown cases were heard, that the judges 
might be less disposed to twist the law in his favour. 
His justice knew no respect of persons. " Toward 
greater misdeeds," we are told, " he showed himself 
stern and inflexible, however high the offender." If 
it was one of his own household he was careful to 
punish the crime more severely than usual. More 
than once he curbed the arbitrary dealing of his 
brother Charles. In particular the case of a knight 
is related, whom the Count of Anjou had con- 
demned in his court, on his own suit, and had thrown 
into prison because he appealed to the King. Louis 
hearing of it summoned Charles and gave him a 
rebuke. " I will teach you," he said, "that there is 
only one King in France. Do not think that be- 
cause you are my brother I will spare you in any 
injustice." He caused the knight to be released, 
assigned him advocates to plead his cause, and after 
full trial broke the former sentence. 

From such impartial rigour lesser culprits could 



252 Saint Louis [1254- 

not hope to escape. A woman of high rank in Pon- 
toise, who was condemned, according to law, to be 
burned for murdering her husband, was unable to 
obtain a reprieve. Though the Queen herself 
begged that at least the execution might be in priv- 
ate, Louis refused, being advised by Simon of Nesle 
that good justice must be public justice. Simon re- 
membered, perhaps, that when there had been a 
question of executing one of his own vassals secretly, 
to avoid scandal, on the request of his kinsmen, the 
King had declared that he would have justice done 
on criminals throughout his realm openly and in 
face of the people. The Count of Joigny, who 
seized a townsman for some offence and refusing to 
surrender him to the royal justice threw him into a 
dungeon where he died, was himself imprisoned. 
John Britaut, accused of killing the son of a poor 
knight with whom he had a quarrel, was kept in 
prison for a year, spite of his riches and many 
friends, till an inquiry into the case could be con- 
cluded ; nor would Louis deliver him to the Count 
of Champagne, who also claimed jurisdiction, fear- 
ing lest justice might be overcome in another court 
by the same influences which had assailed it in his 
own. 

The case of Enguerrand of Coucy, son of the En- 
guerrand who had plotted against the Crown, made 

more noise, owing to the eminence of the 
AD ' & 

culprit. Three Flemish boys of noble birth, 

^^ who were being educated in a neighbouring 

abbey, having gone out to shoot rabbits with bow 

and arrow were led by their sport to trespass on the 



1270] Internal Affairs 253 

woods of Coucy. They were caught by the forest- 
ers ; and Enguerrand ordered them to be hanged 
without inquiry or trial. The abbot and their kins- 
men complained to the King, who cited Enguerrand 
before his Parliament at Paris. He came demand- 
ing to be judged by his peers. But the House of 
Coucy, which in its pride of birth and power scorned 
the support of rank, was proved to have alienated 
to a younger branch the fiefs which carried its 
barony. The demand was rejected therefore ; En- 
guerrand was arrested, not by nobles or knights, but 
by the yeomen of the household, and confined in 
the tower of the Louvre. A day was fixed for his 
trial. The magnates of the realm, who esteemed 
him their equal and were for the most part allied to 
his blood, gathered to attend. Among them came 
the King of Navarre, the Dukes of Brittany and 
Burgundy, the Counts of Bar and Blois and Sois- 
sons, the Archbishop of Rheims, and the Countess 
of Flanders. When the court assembled and the 
case was heard Enguerrand could not deny the 
facts. Leave was given him to withdraw and con- 
sult with his kinsmen. As he went out nearly all 
the princes and barons rose and followed ; the King 
was left alone with his privy councillors. By advice 
of his supporters the prisoner demanded the ordeal 
of battle, through the mouth of John of Thorote. 
It was refused on the ground that precedent ex- 
cluded it, where one party so much exceeded the 
other in power and position. The Duke of Brittany 
insisted, but was reminded that he had been of a 
different opinion when his own vassals, appealing to 



254 Saint Louis [1254- 

the royal court, had offered a similar challenge. 
Louis was at first inclined to pronounce sentence of 
death. But he was turned from this by his own 
doubts and the prayers of the barons, who could 
none of them be brought to give an opinion on the 
case, but only urged the need of mercy. He con- 
demned Enguerrand to pay a fine of ten thousand 
pounds; to build chapels and endow masses for the 
souls of the murdered ; to lose his rights of high 
justice and forestry; and to pass three years in a 
crusade. The last penalty was commuted by the 
King's consent for a payment of twelve thousand 
pounds towards the succour of Palestine. 

"This affair was a great example of justice to 
other kings," writes a chronicler, " seeing that a 
man of such noble lineage, accused by poor and 
simple folk, barely escaped with his life before the 
lover and upholder of right." But the wrath of the 
barons was great. " The King will do well to hang 
us all," said John of Thorote among them. The 
words were reported to Louis, who sent for and 
questioned him. " How say you, John ? That I 
will hang my barons? Assuredly I will not hang 
them, but I will chastise them if they do evil." 

It was natural they should murmur at so unusual 
an assertion of justice over privilege ; for a common 
interest made them jealous of interference even with 
abuses of the power which their order possessed. 
The note of their discontent is sounded again in 
ballads of the time denouncing the attempt to abol- 
ish trial by battle. But though particular points 
might touch them on the raw, the King's general 



1270] Internal Affairs 255 

conduct compelled their respect. They recognised 
that his aim was single ; and could not but acknow- 
ledge that he was even tender to their claims, except 
where the interests of justice required strict enforce- 
ment of his own. On many occasions he checked 
the zeal of his officers in different parts of the realm, 
when they seemed to be stretching their jurisdiction 
or pressing a doubtful right of the Crown against a 
neighbouring lord or prelate or township. What 
struck even more the eye of contemporaries was the 
disregard he showed of his immediate personal profit 
or comfort, if equity lay in the other scale. They 
relate with admiration that when Matthew of Trie 
claimed the county of Dammartin, and adduced in 
support a royal charter from which the seal was 
broken away, though the Council declared the instru- 
ment invalid, the King, seeing it to be genuine, re- 
fused to press a technical flaw, and gave judgment 
for the suitor. And again, when the noise of brawl- 
ers in a tavern at Vitry disturbed his devotions, 
he would not stop them till he had made inquiry 
and found that the justice of the place belonged to 
himself. 

LSo much for the question of justice. Now to turn 
to a hardly less important aspect of government and 
consider the instruments through which it worked. 
Louis used all efforts to secure the integrity of his 
officials, by care in selection, by strictness of instruc- 
tion, and by anxiety to discover and remove offend- 
ers. " He took the greatest pains," it is written, " to 
find faithful and discreet men, of good conversation 
and repute, and above all with clean hands ; and of 



256 Saint Louis [1254- 

such he made his bailiffs and seneschals ; and if they 
behaved well in their office, promoted them to be 
his friends and councillors." Immediately after his 

return to France he issued the celebrated 

AD 

■ ■ ordinance containing instructions to his 

^^ bailiffs, viscounts, provosts, and other offi- 
cers, greater and less, which by its rules and pro- 
hibitions anticipates very many of the precautions 
which the experience of later ages has judged expe- 
dient to be taken against the abuse of administrative 
authority. Among numerous provisions designed 
to prevent and abolish common grievances of the 
governed, those relating to the personal conduct of 
officials are particularly full and explicit. It was 
wisely considered, no doubt, that self-interest is the 
chief cause of misrule ; that motive being put out of 
action, there is little temptation remaining to the 
magistrate or the tax-collector to depart from the 
standard of fairness between man and man. 

It is enacted that the bailiffs and other officials 
shall swear solemnly and publicly on taking up their 
posts that they will receive no presents of gold or 
silver or benefices or anything else from those in 
their jurisdiction, except gifts of fruit, bread, and 
wine of a value less than ten shillings in one week; 
and that they will not allow their wives or children 
or relations or servants to accept such presents. 
Especially that they will receive nothing from those 
who have or are about to have suits to plead before 
them. Similarly that they will not borrow above 
the sum of twenty pounds and will discharge the 
debt within two months. That they will give no 



1270] Internal Affairs 257 

presents to any of the King's councillors, or to those 
appointed to inspect their accounts, or to the travel- 
ling commissioners of inquest: and that the inferior 
ofificials will give none to their superiors. That they 
will faithfully judge and punish their subordinates 
if they find them to be guilty of plunder or usury or 
other misdemeanour, and will not screen or support 
them in any way. 

Bailiffs are also forbidden to buy or acquire land in 
their province without express permission ; otherwise 
the land bought is to escheat to the Crown. With- 
out special leave in each case they are not to marry 
their sons or daughters or kinsmen or kinswomen to 
any person of their province ; nor to procure them 
any benefice of the Church there. These restrictions 
as to marriage and the acquisition of land not to 
apply to officers of lower rank. Further provisions 
declare that the King's officials of the higher degrees 
shall abstain from profane swearing, from dicing, and 
haunting taverns ; and that they shall not maintain 
a multitude of beadles and yeomen, lest the people be 
oppressed. Finally it is provided that all bailiffs, 
viscounts, provosts, and mayors after quitting their 
office shall remain for forty days, in person or by 
procurators, within the sphere of its exercise, so as to 
answer before their successors to all complaints 
which may be lodged against them. 

It is the recognised infirmity of any administrat- 
ive machine that, however excellent the principles 
of its construction, however careful the choice of 
material, however wise the rules which govern its 
working, nothing can hinder the insidious creeping 



258 Saint Louis [1254- 

in of stagnation or abuse or both, but the flow of 
searching and even captious inquiry and criticism 
from outside, and that armed with authority and the 
power of punishment. As the royal rule extended 
and multiplied its springs and levers of action, the 
danger would have grown of the instruments play- 
ing false and running out of gear, had it not been 
prevented by constant examination and repair. The 
commissioners of inquest have been mentioned. 
Such officers had been sent over the realm, in former 
reigns as well as this, upon rare occasions, to inquire 
into and correct the abuses of government for exam- 
ple, immediately before the crusade. But after his 
return the King appointed them frequently and reg- 
ularly, choosing with great care, it is related, some- 
times friars, sometimes lawyers, sometimes knights, 
who travelled through the domain once a year or 
oftener, to investigate the conduct of bailiffs and 
royal officials, and if they found them doing wrong, 
to remove them from their places and punish them. 
An instance of their action is given in the case of the 
bailiff of Amiens, who had become very rich through 
malversation, but was deprived, imprisoned, and 
forced to make restitution by the sale of all he pos- 
sessed ; so that when the King at last set him free 
he had barely a horse to ride on. 

It was the general usage at this time for places of 
office and authority under the Crown to be bought 
and sold ; their emoluments being considered as a pro- 
perty vested in the holder, for the loss of which he 
expected to be compensated by his successor. Louis 
in his ordinance mentioned above put several restric-. 



1270] Internal Affairs 259 

tions on this kind of traffic, which was liable to bear 
evil fruits. In one case, where the harm was notorious, 
he abolished the custom. The provostship of Paris, an 
office of high importance, used to pass to the highest 
bidder. The purchaser recouped himself by selling 
justice to the rich, and by allowing his kinsfolk and 
friends to commit all sorts of outrages with impunity. 
Frightful disorder was the consequence. Joinville 
says that on account of the rapine and injustice the 
common people did not dare to remain on the King's 
ground, but went to dwell in other neighbouring 
lordships. The Provost's court was emptied of suit- 
ors, and all Paris was full of thieves and criminals. 
Louis was aware of the evil, and after in vain trying 
to enlist the help of the Bishop and Chapter, who 
shared the jurisdiction of the city, took the correc- 
tion of it into his own hands. He ordered that the 
provostship should be sold no longer, and attached 
a great wage to the office. Then he searched France 
for a just and stern man, who would not spare the 
rich more than the poor. Such an one was found 
in Stephen Boileau, who was appointed, and so be- 
haved himself, says Joinville, that no malefactor or 
robber or murderer could stay in Paris but was 
hanged at once ; friends or rank or money could not 
save him. The new Provost shewed an almost Ro- 
man virtue, executing his own godson and one of his 
dearest friends for crimes they had committed. The 
people returned and came more than ever to live in 
the King's lordship on account of the good justice 
which they got there, so that the tax on sales and the 
other revenue grew to double its former amount. 



26o Saint Louis [1254- 

The relations of the monarchy with the Church 
have been touched upon in former chapters. Dis- 
putes similar to those there instanced continued to 
spring up in various provinces at intervals of time ; 
but the strife never came to such a head of bitter- 
ness as before the crusade. The King's behaviour 
showed both moderation and firmness. His affec- 
tion to the Church was beyond doubt, and his fond- 
ness for religious persons has been remarked. They 
were always powerful in his counsels : four of his 
ministers became Cardinals, and two of them Popes.* 
But the just and level balance of his mind no less 
than the traditions of the regency saved him from 
that subservience to ecclesiastical interests into which 
the fatal piety of monarchs has sometimes fallen. 
At the same time the general opposition of the bar- 
ons to clerical claims, in which the royal ofificers 
throughout the kingdom joined heartily of their own 
accord, enabled him often to play his favourite part 
of mediator ; and, as protector and head of temporal 
authority, to arrange a compromise with the Pope, 
who represented the spiritual power. Thus extreme 
measures of interdict on the one side and forfeiture 
on the other were avoided or annulled : a more 
reasonable spirit was imposed on the disputants ; 
and the particular matter of quarrel was frequently 
referred to inquiry and arbitration. Nevertheless 
the King maintained steadily, even against papal 



* Raoul, Bishop of Evreux and Cardinal of Alba ; Henry, Arch- 
bishop of Embrun ; Guy Fulcodi, Archbishop of Narbonne, after- 
wards Pope Clement IV. ; Simon, treasurer of Saint Martin of Tours, 
afterwards Pope Martin II. 



1270] Inter 7ial Affairs 261 

remonstrance, the essentials of his position ; the 
competence of the civil courts in civil matters ; the 
royal control over prelates in respect of their temp- 
oralities ; and the right of presentation to benefices. 
The last was the more jealously guarded as he Avas 
extremely anxious and careful that none but fit per- 
sons should be presented. He kept a list of deserv- 
ing clergy, whose learning or piety he had noted, 
and set his face against the common habit of plural- 
ity, refusing to give anyone a benefice unless he 
resigned that which he held already. 

He stood fast also, as Joinville relates, by the re- 
solution taken in the earlier years of the reign to 
oppose the abuse of excommunication. The bish- 
ops of France made complaint, the Bishop of 
Auxerre being spokesman, that many excommun- 
icated persons refused stubbornly to satisfy the 
Church, and so died in their sins ; by which Chris- 
tianity, they said, took great hurt. They desired 
the King therefore to command his ofificers to seize 
the goods of all who had remained excommunicate 
for a year and a day, in order to compel them to get 
themselves absolved. Louis replied that he would 
do this, if after proper inquiry such persons were 
found to be in the wrong. The bishops demurred : 
it was not the King's concern, they said, to inquire 
into cases which ecclesiastical courts had decided. 
He flatly refused to allow his ofHcers to act on any 
other condition, declaring that it would be against 
God and against reason to force people to get ab- 
solution, if it was the clergy who were in the wrong. 
" I will give you an instance," he added, " in the 



262 Saint Louis [1254- 

Count of Brittany."^ He was excommunicated by 
the bishops of Brittany for full seven years: then 
the court of Rome absolved him and condemned 
them. If I had forced him to get absolution after 
the first year I should have sinned against God and 
against him," 

Louis owed a debt of gratitude to the towns of 
his kingdom which he repaid by giving them good 
government and security in their liberties and immun- 
ity from undue taxation more than by any special 
extension of their privileges. Indeed the authority 
and interference of the Crown, in matters of justice 
and finance and in the election of magistrates, was 
more active in the municipalities than it had ever 
been before. But the power was used for good ends, 
order and economy, and its exercise was not unwel- 
come. The King enjoyed a high respect and popu- 
larity among the citizen classes of his subjects, who 
held him with reason to be their friend. He was 
steadily favourable towards them, from motives, as 
it appears, of policy no less than of equity and bene- 
ficence. He abolished, at the prayer of the inhabit- 
ants, a number of unjust or inconvenient customs 
which had grown up in this town or that ; and insti- 
tuted others for the ease and encouragement of 
trade. In particular he is recorded to have made 
regulations to protect the transactions of foreign 
merchants ; so that great numbers of them brought 
their wares into France, by which the country was 
enriched. But perhaps his most useful measure in 



* That is John, son of Peter. 



1270] Internal Affairs 263 

this direction was the reform of the coinage, a mat- 
ter to which he was very attentive. Many different 
coinages circulated in the realm ; for it was a pre- 
rogative not only of the magnates but of lesser 
barons to strike their own. The multitude of stand- 
ards, the variation of values, the frequency of de- 
basement were great impediments to commerce. 
Louis worked to establish a uniform coinage, — the 
royal, — to regulate it on a suitable scale, and to fix 
its value. He would never use any but his own 
money ; and made an ordinance nine years after his 
return providing that royal money alone 
should circulate in the domain, and that ■^••'^• 
elsewhere it should pass equally with that of ^ 

the lord of the place. Severe penalties were added 
against clippers and coiners. To increase its author- 
ity the ordinance was countersigned by deputies on 
behalf of the citizens of Paris, Orleans, Sens, Laon, 
and Provins. 

At the close of reviewing the King's public be- 
haviour it will not be out of place to repeat from 
the written instructions which he left to his succes- 
sor those parts which deal with the conduct to be 
observed by the Prince towards his own subjects, the 
Church, and other rulers. The following precepts 
are extracted from the document as it has been 
handed down by several contemporary writers in 
terms that differ a little from one another according 
to the variety of copies : 

" Dear son, maintain the good customs of your realm 
and abolish the bad. Do not be covetous with your 



264 Saint Louis [1254- 

people, nor lay tax nor toll on them except through great 
necessity. Be faithful and stern to do justice to your 
subjects, without turning to the right hand or the left. 
Uphold the plaint of the poor against the rich, until the 
truth be declared. If any man has a suit against you, 
speak for him and against yourself, till the truth is 
known ; for so your councillors will be bolder in judg- 
ing for you or against you, according to right. If you 
hold aught belonging to another, having got it yourself 
or from your ancestors, if the thing is certain, restore it 
without delay ; if it is doubtful, make careful inquiry 
quickly through wise men. Take thought how your 
people and subjects may live in peace and justice under 
you. Especially guard the good towns and communes 
of your realm in the state and franchise in which your 
ancestors guarded them ; and if there is anything to 
amend, amend it ; and hold them in favour and love ; 
for through the force and riches of the great towns your 
subjects and strangers will fear to do you wrong, espe- 
cially your peers and barons. Honour and love all per- 
sons belonging to Holy Church, and see that they are not 
deprived of the gifts and alms v/hich your ancestors be- 
stowed on them. Give the benefices of Holy Church to 
godly persons of clean life, acting therein according to 
the advice of prudent and pious men. Keep yourself 
from making war against Christian men without much 
counsel ; and if it befalls that you must make war, 
guard Holy Church and those who have not sinned 
against you. If wars and quarrels arise between your 
subjects, appease them as quickly as you can. Be care- 
ful to have good provosts and bailiffs ; and often make 
inquiry about them and about your household, how they 
behave themselves, and whether there is any vice of 
covetousness or falseness or knavery among them. 



1270] Internal Affairs 265 

Labour that all naughty sins may be removed from the 
earth : especially suppress naughty oaths and heresy 
with all your power. Take care that the expenses of 
your household are reasonable." 





THEOBALD, KINQ OF NAVARRE JOHN OF JOINVILLE 

CHAPTER XI 

PERSONAL LIFE 
I 2 54- I 270 

IN the two preceding chapters we have considered 
the conduct of the prince and the governor, and 
have seen how it commended itself, and how 
deservedly, to the judgment of the world. But the 
King's religion and virtue received even more praise 
from his contemporaries than did his peacefulness 
and wisdom and justice: the qualities of the mon- 
arch were excelled by those of the saint. His faith 
and charity, his devotion and gentleness and temper- 
ance and humility in daily life, are the theme of all 
his biographers, four of whom may be mentioned 
whose opportunities of knowledge and acquaint- 
ance cannot be denied. The most celebrated is John 
of Joinville, the seneschal of Champagne, who fol- 
lowed Louis in his crusade and lived much with him 
after his return. Godfrey of Beaulieu, the King's 
confessor during the last twenty years of his life, 
and William of Chartres, his almoner, who was with 
him in captivity and at his death, have both written 
biographies turning more on his private than public 

266 



[1254-70] Personal Life 267 

actions. There is also a life of the same description 
by an anonymous writer, who was confessor for 
eighteen years to Queen Margaret, and afterwards to 
her daughter Blanche. It would be tedious and ful- 
some to repeat all the laudations and anecdotes of 
these authors, the truth of which nevertheless there 
is seldom any reason to doubt. It will be sufificient 
to attempt to draw from them and from other 
sources some account of the King's disposition and 
habits during this latter part of his reign, to which 
period their narratives, with the exception of Join- 
ville's, for the most part refer. 

From his earliest years Louis had been inclined 
to goodness, but after the unhappy issue of the 
crusade the activity and fervour of his piety in- 
creased. He felt that the supreme and crowning 
enterprise, as he deemed it, of a Christian King had 
slipped his grasp ; and he turned from the holy 
quest which was denied him to a more strict and 
assiduous fulfilment of the lesser duties that re- 
mained, as if therein he hoped to be able to forget, 
and perhaps to atone for, the great failure with 
which he reproached himself. To use the image of 
his confessor, his new and holy behaviour after the 
return from Palestine excelled his former by as much 
as gold is more precious than silver. 

He was conspicuous in charity to the poor and 
miserable ; six score poor were fed from his table 
every day wherever he went, and more in Lent and 
Advent. Three times a week in those seasons he 
served thirteen of them with bread, soup, and meat 
or fish from his own hands, before eating himself; 



268 Saint Louis 



[1254- 



and sometimes the whole number. Besides this he 
continually bestowed large gifts of food, clothing, 
and money. His donation to the friars and nuns of 
the mendicant orders alone amounted to seven 
thousand pounds a year, besides cloth and shoes, 
and sixty thousand herrings each Lent. " He gave 
in addition more alms than can be counted," says 
Joinville, " to poor monks, to poor sick, to hospitals 
and almshouses, to poor gentlemen and women, to 
fallen women, to poor widows and those who were 
lying in of child, to poor workmen who through old 
age or sickness could not pursue their trade." Nor 
did this exhaust his liberality. He raised and en- 
dowed hospitals at Paris, Pontoise, Compiegne, and 
Vernon, himself superintending the building and or- 
dering the arrangement of the rooms ; also a house 
for three hundred blind men at Paris, and another 
for reformed prostitutes, that they might be able to 
escape from sin. 

It is related that there were some who blamed the 
great expenses of his charity. " Better be extrava- 
gant in almsgiving for the love of God," replied 
Louis, "than on vain and worldly show." After 
the crusade he ceased to wear cloth of green or scar- 
let, or plumes, or rich furs ; but that the poor, who 
received his cast-ofT garments, might not lose by the 
change, he added sixty pounds each year to the sum 
distributed in alms. He would use no gold or silver 
bridles or rich trappings for his horses, and no gold 
or silver plate at his own table. Nevertheless he 
kept up the splendour which his dignity required. 
Not only were solemn occasions, such as the visit 



1270] Pe7^sonal Life 269 

of the English King, suitably honoured, but at all 
times he maintained his household on a scale which 
was thought liberal, and even magnificent ; and 
showed fitting largess and hospitality at the sessions 
of Parliament and assemblies of his barons. The 
service of his Court, we are told, was much more 
seemly, abundant, and noble than that of any of his 
ancestors. 

Louis built neither castles nor palaces for his own 
state and pleasure : he is said to have disapproved 
of that favourite and most devouring expense of 
princes. Happily his patronage was not lost to the 
architecture of France, which was then in the spring 
of its strength and beauty, having alone, as yet, 
among the greater arts risen again out of the ruin of 
the ancients and developed beyond the feebleness 
of infancy. Cathedrals and churches and abbeys 
sprang up over the kingdom, many by royal munifi- 
cence and aid, many by that of rich barons who were 
moved to imitate the pious example of their sov- 
ereign. "As a writer having made his book," says 
the chronicler, " illumines it with gold and azure, so 
the King illumined his realm with the fair abbeys 
which he built therein." There was a general activ- 
ity in religious building ; the cathedrals of Amiens, 
Rheims, and Beauvais, to name a few out of many, 
were partly or wholly constructed in this reign. 
Royaumont and the Holy Chapel have been men- 
tioned ; the nave and transept of Saint Denis was 
another work due to the King's direct impulse ; be- 
sides numerous convents, mostly for the orders of 
Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, whose austere rule 



270 Sautt Louis [1254- 

and comparative simplicity of life Louis held in high 
affection and esteem. 

" He loved," it is said, " all persons who devoted 
themselves to the service of God and wore the garb 
of religion." To his confessor he behaved with the 
utmost deference and submission ; and caused the 
table of his chaplains to be placed higher than his 
own. When he stayed at Royaumont or some other 
abbey, as he often did, he would join the monks in 
their tasks and meals and devotions and studies, 
serving at their tables, chanting the offices, listening 
to an exposition of the Scriptures, living and faring 
in all ways like the meanest brother of the order, 
except that he showed more humility. Some years 
after his return it appears that he formed the design 
of abdicating the crown to his son and retiring to a 
monastery. He was dissuaded with difficulty by the 
Queen, to whom first he disclosed his purpose. She 
prevailed in the end by force of entreaty, pleading 
the public interest and pointing to the unripe years 
of the Prince and the evils which had attended the 
King's own minority. 

This side of his conduct, though approved by 
those whose opinion was best worth having, did not 
escape some stricture in an age when the regular 
clergy were too liable to the jealousy and dislike of 
a large body of people. An incident is related 
which shows at once the reproaches to which he was 
exposed, and the patience with which he bore them. 
A certain woman who was pleading in his court cried 
out to him one day as he came to take his seat : 
"Fie! Fie! shouldest thou be King of France? 



1270] Personal Life 271 

Better another than thou, for thou art naught but 
one of the Preaching friars, and a clerk and a shave- 
ling. Great evil it is that thou art King, and great 
wonder that thou art not thrust forth from the 
realm." Louis heard her out, then answered smiling, 
"Assuredly you say sooth; I am not worthy to be 
King ; and, if it had been God's pleasure, it would be 
better another should be so, who knew better how 
to govern the realm "; and was so far from resent- 
ing an insult which most rulers of his time would 
have punished with savage cruelty that he forbade 
the yeomen to touch her or put her out of the court, 
and afterwards sent one of his chamberlains to con- 
sole her grievances with a present of money. 

But if he could not become a monk in name and 
profession he led a life as severe and self-denying, 
and almost as assiduous in prayer and fasting and 
penance, as if he had been immured in a cloister 
under the most rigid rule of austerity. It was his 
custom to rise before dawn to hear matins in his 
chapel, going and returning in silence so as not to 
wake the knights who slept in his chamber. In the 
evening he heard complines, and during the day two 
masses or more according to the season, and also the 
Canonical Hours and the Hours of the Virgin 
chanted. If he were abroad on horseback he would 
go through the latter at the usual time in a low 
voice with his chaplain. If he were travelling and 
found no chapel the services were said in his own 
apartment. Everrwhen he was sick he would have 
them held by his bedside. Some nobles complained 
that he wasted so much time in hearing masses and 



272 Saint Louis [1254- 

sermons, " If I spent double as much," he retorted, 
" in playing dice, or in hunting and fowling, nothing 
would be said of it." He prayed alone often and 
earnestly, crying for the " gift of tears," in which, as 
he sadly admitted to his confessor, he was deficient, 
and rejoiced to feel them run down his cheeks. He 
knelt at his devotions on the bare stone in summer 
and winter, and lay on a plank bed covered only 
with a cloth. Every Friday he fasted, in Advent 
and Lent on bread and water alone. On Fridays he 
confessed, and received discipline from his confessor 
with a small scourge, which he always carried in an 
ivory case concealed in his dress. Similar scourges 
he gave to his children and particular friends, " that 
they might receive discipline at the fitting time and 
place." He submitted to every penance which his 
confessor imposed, and laid others on himself, such 
as wearing a hair shirt once a week in Advent and 
Lent, and fasting more often and more severely than 
the Church enjoined. These austerities injured his 
feeble health, and after falling dangerously ill he was 
induced to relax them in some degree. 

Not only on Fast days but at all seasons he ob- 
served moderation and abstinence in food and drink. 
" I never heard him," says Joinville, "planning new 
dishes, as many rich men do." He would never eat 
of the most dainty dishes which were set on his 
table, nor a fruit or fish the first time it appeared in 
its season, but sent such things down to the poor. 
He mixed water with his wine, and purposely spoilt 
in the same way any rich and savoury sauce which 
was served to him. In Lent he abstained from wine 




SAINT LOUIS SUBMITTING TO 
SCOURQINQ. 



SAINT LOUIS FEEDING 
A LEPER. 



1270] Personal Life 273 

altogether, and drank beer instead, which he disliked. 
The spirit of humility and mortification enjoined 
on Christians led him to wash the feet of poor beg- 
gars. He did this regularly every week, not from 
ostentation, for he kept it as secret as possible, and 
is related to have chosen blind men most often for the 
purpose, that they might not know who he was. In 
the same spirit he fed the infirm poor at table with 
his own hand, causing three such to sit always by 
his chair. He often visited the hospitals, and there 
and elsewhere ministered to the meanest wants of 
the sick, especially of lepers and those afflicted with 
other loathsome diseases from whom everyone else 
shrank. But this also he did in private as far as he 
could, and sometimes refrained lest he might shock 
or annoy barons who were present and not well 
acquainted with his habits. 

These ascetic rigours did not harden his temper or 
destroy the natural gaiety of his disposition, as may 
be judged from one of the penances which he laid 
on himself, " not to laugh on a Friday if he could 
help it." "He had a pleasant manner of speech 
seasoned with wit," writes one of his biographers, 
" and was very fond of conversation, saying that 
nothing was so good after a meal." Stage-players 
he abhorred, and took no great delight in songs and 
ballads. But when rich lords who were his guests 
brought their own minstrels, as was the fashion, to 
amuse the company with reciting and playing on the 
harp, he listened courteously. He was an affable 
and agreeable host, and took especial trouble to en- 
tertain strangers. He was familiar with his friends, 



2 74 Saint Louis [1254- 

waiving the privileges of his rank and disdaining all 
ceremonious etiquette; in his intimate letters he did 
not style himself King, but Louis of Poissy — the 
place where he was born and baptised. 

We are told that he seldom ate in company of the 
barons, but had a keen desire for the acquaintance 
of honourable and modest men. Renowned doctors 
and scholars frequented his court and table, among 
whom may be named Robert of Sorbonne and Saint 
Thomas Aquinas. In conversation he would speak 
of the vicissitudes of his reign, especially of the inci- 
dents of his crusade arid captivity, always express- 
ing thankfulness for the Divine mercy which had 
been signally manifested to him on many occasions. 
Sometimes discussion appears to have turned on 
questions of theology, on the working of Providence 
in the world, or on the minor points of ethics, the 
comparative value of different qualities, and how 
men ought to behave in particular circumstances. 
Joinville has related one passage on a lighter topic, 
which is worth repeating for the witness it bears to 
the King's consideration of the feelings of others. 
It happened at Corbeil as they were walking in a 
meadow after dinner. Robert of Sorbonne, between 
whom and the seneschal there was frequently a war 
of words, attacked him about the dress he was wear- 
ing. " If the King sat down and you sat in a higher 
place, would you not be to blame?" " Yes," said 
Joinville unsuspectingly. " Then you are much to 
blame for clothing yourself more richly than the 
King ; for you are wearing green cloth and fur, 
which he never does." This made Joinville angry 



12701 Personal Life 275 

and he retorted ; " Master Robert, saving your grace, 
I am not to blame if I clothe myself in green cloth 
and fur, for that dress was left me by my parents. 
But you are to blame, for you who are a serf's son 
have abandoned the dress of your parents and wear 
finer cloth than the King," " And I took the lappel 
of his surcoat and that of the King," the narrator 
goes on, "and said, ' See if it is not true.' Then the 
King began to speak for Master Robert and to de- 
fend him with all his might." Afterwards he called 
Joinville and some others apart, "and said that he 
had called me to confess that he was wrong in his 
defence of Master Robert. ' But,' said he, ' I saw 
him so confused that he needed my aid. But let 
none of you stick at what I said in defending him ; 
for, as the seneschal says, you should dress well and 
neatly, and your wives will love you the better for 
it, and your people respect you more. As the Sage 
has said, a man's clothing and armour should be 
such that grave men will not call it too rich, nor 
young men call it too mean.' " 

The same kindness of heart shone through his 
whole behaviour and endeared him to his acquaint- 
ance and following. " There was something in the 
mere sight of him," writes Godfrey of Beaulieu, 
" that found a way to the hearts and affections of all." 
He was extraordinarily patient with his servants and 
those of his household, never speaking harshly to 
the lowest footboy except for a grave fault, and pass- 
ing over or pardoning omissions or carelessness 
which, as he said himself to one who dropped burn- 
ing grease on him from a candle, his grandfather 



276 Saint Louis [1254- 

would have punished with dismissal at the least. 
He is related however on one occasion to have lost 
his temper and beaten a lazy squire, justifying himself 
by the necessity of making some distinction between 
good servants and bad. He could not bear to hear 
slanderous tales against anyone. Those whom he 
wished to rebuke or admonish he called aside and 
spoke to in private, or with only his confessor pre- 
sent; as in the case of a lady of the Court who was 
notorious for her extravagance in dress and orna- 
ment, but by the King's gentle exhortations was 
brought to amend her ways. 

His leniency to faults against himself was con- 
trasted with an uncommon severity towards some 
sins which the world is generally disposed to con- 
done, in particular those of impurity and blasphemy. 
Offences of this kind, which do not seem to inflict 
any direct and definite injury on society, are left as 
a rule to the punishment of Heaven ; but Louis in 
his great zeal for the honour of God and the salva- 
tion of his people's souls discountenanced and re- 
pressed by such means as lay in his power practices 
which were harmful to both. He was not only 
strictly continent in his own life, but exacted the 
same virtue from his attendants and urged it upon 
his nobles. Several of the latter were persuaded 
by him to put away their concubines or to marry 
thern and live cleanly ; while dissolute habits if 
discovered in the royal household were rewarded 
with instant dismissal and sometimes with further 
penalties. 

" He was much troubled," says his confessor, " by 



1270] Personal Life 277 

the general plague and vice of shameful oaths and 
blasphemies against God and the Saints which from 
old times had specially afflicted his realm." Join- 
ville adds his testimony. " I never heard him name 
the Devil, except in reading some book, such as the 
lives of the Saints, where it was necessary. That 
name has great currency through the kingdom, and 
it is great disgrace to France and to the King who 
suffers it, that men can hardly speak a word without 
saying ' Devil take him ! ' It is a grievous fault of 
the tongue to devote to the Devil men and women 
who have been given to God in their baptism. In 
my house of Joinville he who uses such words gets 
a buffet or a stroke from a stick, and thereby this 
bad language is almost entirely put down." The 
evil was so notorious that the Pope interested him- 
self in its suppression, committing the matter to his 
Legate, Simon, Cardinal of Saint Cecilia, by whose 
advice the King called a Parliament of prelates and 
barons at Paris in 1264, in which an ordinance was 
passed for the punishment of public blasphemers by 
fine, pillory, or imprisonment, according to the grav- 
ity of their offence; and in gross cases by burning 
in the tongue. The last penalty was enforced some 
time after against a burgess of Paris. The severity 
excited many murmurs, by which Louis was un- 
moved. He declared that he would willingly be 
burned in the tongue himself if he could only extir- 
pate this wicked habit of his people : and when a 
benefit which he conferred on the city renewed his 
popularity with the Parisians, remarked that he ex- 
pected a greater reward in Heaven on account of 



278 Saint LoMis [1254- 

their former curses than from the blessings which 
they now bestowed. 

His harshness in this respect sprang from the be- 
lief which he shared with his contemporaries that it 
was the duty of a pious ruler to punish disobedience 
to the laws of God and outrage against his majesty 
equally with that offered to human decrees and dig- 
nities. To a similar cause must be attributed his 
active dislike of unbelievers. He held heretics in 
horror : happily there was no occasion in the latter 
part of the reign for any persecution of such. He 
refused in Egypt to endure the presence of a rene- 
gade. " Jews he hated so much that he could not 
bear to look on them," says William of Chartres. 
The same writer describes his general attitude to- 
wards the oppressed race. " He would not take any 
of their goods for his own use, and declared that 
they should not be allowed to practice usury but 
must get their living by trade or labour." When it 
was represented to him that there must be usury, 
and that being destructive to salvation it was better 
it should be practised by Jews, who were damned in 
any case, than by Christians, Louis answered that 
Christian usurers might be dealt with by the ecclesi- 
astical courts which had jurisdiction over them, but 
that the Jews were his affair and he would not have 
them poison France with usury under his protection. 
" Let them give it up or go from my land." He 
had already during the stay in Palestine or- 
dered them to be expelled from the royal 

^^ domain, and the edict was enforced after his 
return against all who continued obstinate. Diligent 



1270] Personal Life 279 

inquiry was made in order that the confiscated pro- 
perty of the condemned might be restored to those 
from whom it had been plundered. The King how- 
ever was not content only to punish Jews, but 
worked to convert them with a charity unusual at 
the time ; and in a few cases succeeded. 

His faith in the Christian creed was firm and deep 
and not disturbed by any doubts or questionings. 
"He used to say," Joinville relates, " that we ought 
to believe in the articles of the Faith so strongly as 
never to contradict them by word or deed, whatever 
mischief or harm might happen to our bodies on 
that account ; and that the subtlety of the Enemy 
of mankind was such, that not being able to deprive 
men of the reward of their good works he laboured 
with all his might to make them die in doubt ; and 
that therefore we should keep watch over ourselves, 
and thrust away the snares and temptations of this 
kind which the Enemy sends." But he understood 
and sympathised with those who experienced and 
resisted the assaults of unbelief, quoting the case of 
a learned divine who confessed his doubtings to the 
Bishop of Paris and was consoled by him with the 
assurance that a faith which held out against strong 
temptation would be more highly honoured and re- 
warded than that which was never assailed ; just as 
the guard of a dangerous and exposed fortress was 
more honourable than that of one standing in per- 
fect security beyond the reach of a foe. The King 
however used to declare, says the same biographer, 
that, to avoid running into peril, no man who was not 
a very great clerk should hold dispute or argument 



28o Saint Louis [1254- 

with unbelievers about the Faith ; the layman when 
he heard the Christian religion defamed should de- 
fend it not with his tongue but with good blows of 
his sword. 

Louis was a scholar and a patron of learning. He 
read daily after dinner in the Vulgate or in the 
works of Saint Augustine or some other of the Fath- 
ers, sometimes translating the Latin aloud for the 
benefit of his attendants, or discussing what he read 
with learned monks or prelates. While he was 
abroad he heard of a Sultan of the Saracens who 
had formed a library of all sorts of books bearing on 
the religion and philosophy of the East, He was 
stirred to emulate this example, and after his return 
caused copies to be made from the best originals 
which could be found of the Scriptures and of the 
writings of Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint 
Jerome, Saint Gregory, and many other Fathers and 
Doctors, and built a library for them in his chapel, 
where he often studied himself and allowed anyone 
else who wished. He preferred, it is said, to have 
manuscripts copied rather than to buy those already 
existing, in order that the number of books might 
be increased. In the last half of the reign 
Robert of Sorbonne founded his famous col- 
^ ^~ lege of theology at Paris under royal patron- 
age, Pfetting a grant of land and houses from 
1270 i=> ' t> fc> fc> 

the King. Other foundations belong to the 
same period ; notably the college of the Bernardins, 
that of Cluny, and the college of the Treasurers. 
The University itself, of which these were branches, 
flourished exceedingly after its restoration, though 



1270] Personal Life 281 

convulsed by the jealous rivalry between the mendi- 
cant orders and the secular doctors, which Louis 
strove to appease. He succeeded in arranging a 
compromise in 1256, but the Pope annulled it and 
the dispute raged some years longer. Among the 
celebrated theologians whose names appear in the 
history of the quarrel may be mentioned Thomas 
Aquinas of the Dominicans, Bonaventure of the 
Franciscans, William of Saint Amour, and Gerard of 
Abbeville of the seculars. 

Joinville accuses the King of neglecting his wife 
and children in Palestine. His behaviour at home 
is certainly not open to that reproach. He lived 
with the Queen in mutual affection and confidence, 
though her interference was rarely admitted, even if 
it was offered, in public affairs. He took great pains 
with the education of his children, keeping them 
much in his company. As his sons grew up he 
caused them to attend him regularly to complines 
and also to other services and to sermons. On 
special occasions when he washed the feet of the 
poor or served them at table the Princes would do 
the same. The two that were born during the cru- 
sade were brought up in monastic houses at Paris, 
and Louis is said to have intended that they should 
take the vows of religion. Whether from want of 
inclination or for some other reason they never did 
this, but were married instead. Joinville has given 
a picture of the King's domestic life. " Before he 
went to bed he would make his children come to 
him, and would tell them of the deeds of good Kings 
and Emperors, saying that they should take example 



282 Saint Louis [1254- 

from such. Also he would speak of the deeds of 
wicked princes who had lost their realms by luxury 
and rapine and avarice. ' And these things,' he 
would say, ' I tell you that you may beware of 
them, lest God be angry.' He made them learn 
their Hours of the Virgin and say their Hours of the 
Day before him, to accustom them to hear their 
Hours when they got lands of their own." He was 
strict in exacting their obedience. " You have done 
very wrong," he said to his son Philip and his son-in- 
law Theobald, when out of ceremony and respect 
they would not sit as close to him as he commanded, 
" since although you are my sons you did not do my 
bidding at once. See that it does not happen so 
again." The instructions which he left to Philip 
have been mentioned above ; they deal with the 
private no less than the public side of life. Other 
letters are extant written to his daughters Isabel 
and Margaret, exhorting them to piety and virtue 
and modest behaviour. 

The health of Louis was weak, a constitution nat- 
urally delicate having been further damaged by the 
hardship and severe illness first of the Poitevin then 
of the Egyptian campaign. But none the less he 
led a life full of various activity. His days were oc- 
cupied by the business of justice and affairs of state, 
besides the time given to charitable works, to prayer 
and to study, which last two often trenched upon 
the hours of sleep. His only diversion was reading 
and conversation ; for in the latter part of his life he 
gave up hunting and hawking, and had never spent 
his leisure in dicing or any such idle amusement. 



1270] Personal Life 283 

He was constantly travelling, mostly in the neigh- 
bourhood of Paris, as was natural. But he also 
visited Normandy and other parts of his domains, 
except the south. The existing records show an 
average of forty royal journeys every year. To this 
cause it may be attributed that the provinces were 
not neglected. In particular the King's care is re- 
corded in relieving local famines, which sometimes 
prevailed owing to the failure of harvest in a place 
and the difficulty and slowness of traffic between dif- 
ferent parts. 

" Many men wondered," says a chronicler, "that 
one man, so meek, so gentle, not strong of body nor 
strenuous in labour, could reign peacefully over so 
great a kingdom and so many powerful lords, espe- 
cially as he was neither lavish in presents nor very 
complaisant to some of them." But gentle of be- 
haviour and feeble of body as he was, we are told 
that a certain reverence was felt by all who ap- 
proached him, even men accustomed to the presence 
of kings. His name was honoured for saintliness 
and wisdom both in and beyond his realm, and his 
visible power and authority was enhanced by the 
renown of his personal virtues. 





CHARLES, KING OF SICILY 



MATTHEW OF MONTMORENCY 



CHAPTER XII 

SECOND CRUSADE AND DEATH OF LOUIS 



1270 

TOWARDS the end of his reign the King's heart 
turned to a design in which he could expect 
no favour or support from his counsellors. 
He had relinquished the crusade with reluctance. 
Soon after he was balked of his wish to become 
a monk a prospect of renewing it began to be 
opened. Europe was filled with tidings of fresh 
calamity in Palestine, which was overrun first by the 
Tartars, then by the victorious arms of the Sultan 
of Egypt, that Bibars who had fought at Mansourah; 
and successive Popes were exhorting the princes of 
Christendom to succour the distress of their breth- 
ren. To Louis it seemed a Divine call to resume his 
quest, to devote his declining years, as he had de- 
voted the flower of his manhood, to the service of 
the Faith, and perhaps by a new and more prosper- 
ous attempt to achieve the high purpose which he 
had missed. As this hope slowly took shape in his 
mind he consulted secretly with Pope Clement IV., 
who after long wavering and doubt sent an encour- 

284 



1270] Second Crttsade and Death 285 

aging answer. By this his resolution, which contin- 
ually grew stronger, was fixed ; and in order to 
announce it he called a great Parliament at Paris 
for the Lent of 1267. 

The narration of Joinville, who was one of those 
summoned, shows with what dismay the news was 
received by his people. Though the secret was still 
guarded, rumours were in the air. "When I had 
heard mass," says the writer, " I went to the King's 
chapel, and found the King on the platform where 
the relics were kept. While he was coming down, 
two knights, members of his Council, began to talk 
with one another. One of them said, ' Never believe 
me if the King does not take the cross here.' And 
the other replied, * If he does it will be one of the 
most sorrowful days that ever was in France. For 
if we do not take the cross we shall lose the King, 
and if we do we shall lose God, seeing that we shall 
do it not for Him, but for fear of the King.' " Their 
words came true, for next day Louis took the cross 
in full Parliament. His three eldest sons, Philip, 
John, and Peter, and the Duke of Brittany followed 
his example ; so a short time after did his son-in- 
law, Theobald of Navarre, and his nephew, Robert of 
Artois, son of him who had fallen in Egypt ; so did 
a number of magnates, moved by their respect for 
the King and by his exhortations and those of the 
Legate, the Cardinal of Saint Cecilia, whom the Pope 
had commissioned to preach the crusade. But 
among the general body of barons there was dislike 
and reluctance. The enthusiasm of the kingdom 
had been exhausted by the previous expedition : 



286 Saint Louis 



[1270 



even men of a zealous spirit thought that enough 
had been done and suffered for honour and for the 
Faith, and let their minds dwell on immediate dan- 
gers and inconvenience more than on the prospect 
of ultimate glory and gain, while former ill-fortune 
had made them incredulous of success. Joinville, 
who speaks for himself, represented the feelings of 
many. " I was hard pressed by the King of France 
and the King of Navarre to take the cross. But I 
answered that while I had been in service of God 
and the King beyond sea the ofificers of both Kings 
had destroyed and impoverished my people, as I 
found on my return, by reason of which they and 
I would always be the poorer. So I told them I 
would remain at home to aid and defend my people, 
wishing to do God's will ; for if I put my body in 
the peril of pilgrimage, seeing clearly that evil and 
damage would come to my vassals thereby, I should 
anger God, who gave His body to save his people." 

" It is my opinion," he continues, " that they who 
advised the King to go committed mortal sin ; since 
as long as he was in France the whole realm was at 
peace in itself and with all its neighbours, but no 
sooner had he gone than its state fell to worse." 

It was three years before the crusade was ready 
to start, during which time Louis quietly followed 
the usual course of his life and government, exam- 
ples and incidents of which have been related in the 
three preceding chapters. Meanwhile he was making 
his preparations. His eager persuasion drew a far 
greater number to join him than the few who had 
taken the cross in the assembly of Parliament at the 



1270] Second Crusade and Death 287 

first surprise. Besides the King of Navarre and the 
Count of Artois, the Counts of Flanders and Saint 
Paul and La Marche and Soissons and many others 
adhered ; and from abroad the King of Aragon and 
Prince Edward of England. It was necessary to 
raise money : even before he published his design 
the King had made a beginning by retrenching the 
expenses of his household. A tax was levied on 
the domain and large sums were received from the 
towns. The Pope granted a tithe on ecclesiastical 
revenues, which the clergy paid, not without mur- 
murs, after sending deputies to Rome to protest, 
whom Clement dismissed with a fierce rebuke. 
Ships too were needed from the Venetians and Gen- 
oese, and were only obtained after much delay and 
trouble, owing to the quarrel of the two republics 
and to the Venetians' fear of losing their trade with 
Alexandria if they angered the Egyptian Sultan. 
There were threads of foreign and domestic affairs 
to wind up ; marriages to contract ; reconciliations 
to effect ; a final extraordinary inspection of the do- 
main to be carried out, for the purpose of repairing 
any wrongs and reforming any abuses which might 
be discovered. 

At last all was ready. A Parliament was called at 
Paris for Candlemas 1270. The King made his will 
and appointed Matthew, Abbot of Saint Denis, and 
Simon of Nesle to be Regents in his absence. He 
lifted the oriflamme from the altar of Saint Denis, and 
received the staff and wallet from the new Legate, 
Raoul, Bishop and Cardinal of Alba, who was to 
accompany him. Then returning to Paris he visited 



Saint Louis [1270 



Notre Dame, and next day bade farewell to the 
Queen at Vincennes. He was in no condition to 
undertake the crusade had not an indomitable spirit 
sustained him. " Great sin was theirs who advised 
his going," says Joinville, " seeing the great feeble- 
ness of his body ; for he could not bear to ride in a 
carriage or on horseback. Such was his weakness 
that he let me carry him in my arms from the house 
of the Count of Auxerre, where I took my leave of 
him, as far as the Cordeliers. But feeble though he 
was, perhaps he might have lived long enough if he 
had stayed at home, and have done much good and 
many pious works." 

He reached Aigues Mortes by easy stages at the 
beginning of May, but found neither fleet nor army 
yet assembled. Accordingly he stayed in that neigh- 
bourhood for near two months, at the end of which 
time an immense number of men and ships was 
gathered in and about the port. On the ist of July 
he embarked with his sons and nephew and sailed 
for Cagliari in Sardinia, where the forces of the ex- 
pedition were to be collected. They made harbour 
after eight days of a rough crossing. The people of 
Cagliari being subjects of Pisa were enemies to the 
Genoese who manned the fleet, and were induced 
with difficulty to sell provisions and fresh water and 
to give shelter to the sick. The King remained on 
board his ship, waiting for the King of Navarre, the 
Count of Poitiers, and the rest, who joined him in a 
few days. A council was then held, in which it was 
determined that the course of the crusade should 
first be directed to Tunis. Several reasons went to 



1270] Second Crusade and Death 289 

form the decision. It was reported that the Sultan 
of Tunis was inclined to become convert to Christ- 
ianity. His ambassadors had visited France the 
year before and encouraged this belief. It was 
known that some congregations of Christians re- 
mained in those parts, and Louis was particularly 
struck with the notion of reviving the ancient 
strength and glories of the Church of Africa, with 
which he was acquainted from his study of Saint 
Augustine. He thought that the arrival of so pow- 
erful an army would confirm the disposition of the 
Sultan and overawe his Infidel subjects. In addition 
it was represented by many that, even should their 
hope be disappointed, the country was rich and its 
capital easy to take ; and that the Sultan of Egypt 
drew from that region great quantities of money, 
men, and horses, of which to have deprived him 
would be a considerable advantage in any subsequent 
campaign. A cause less avowed but perhaps not 
less effective lay in the policy of Charles of Anjou. 
As King of Sicily he claimed tribute from Tunis ; 
payment had been refused, and the prospect of en- 
forcing and, if fortune favoured, of extending his 
rights led him to use his powerful influence in 
turning thither the plans of the crusaders. 

The voyage was resumed on the 15th of July; 
three days later the host disembarked between Tunis 
and Carthage, the Saracens, who were taken by sur- 
prise, offering hardly any opposition. The crusaders 
occupied a peninsula where they were distressed for 
want of water ; accordingly they moved next week 
towards Carthage which lay about a league distant. 



290 Saint Louis [1270 

Nothing remained of that ancient and famous city 
but a rude fortress, which a body of sailors, supported 
by five hundred crossbows and four troops of men- 
at-arms, captured by escalade. This gave the army 
a suitable place of encampment, as the surrounding 
country was laid out in gardens and plentifully irri- 
gated by wells. But further operations were de- 
layed. The expectation of the enemy's weakness 
proved as delusive as the rumour of his conversion. 
The Sultan, so far from welcoming the invader, im- 
prisoned the principal of his Christian subjects and 
soldiers, intending to use them as hostages. The 
Saracens followed their usual tactics, surrounding 
and harrassing the outskirts of the camp with great 
numbers of horsemen, and continually threatening 
to attack, causing much annoyance though little 
damage, since they rarely ventured to come to close 
quarters. Ditches were dug to protect the tents, 
and it was resolved not to advance against Tunis 
until the arrival of the King of Sicily, who was ex- 
pected from day to day and had desired particularly 
that no aggressive operation should be undertaken 
before he came, as he was still in negotiation with 
the Sultan. 

Meanwhile the fierce heat of Africa and bad or 
insufficient food began to affect the army in its 
stationary quarters. Dysentery broke out and 
spread rapidly. Many perished, among them the 
Legate and Prince John, Count of Nevers. Louis 
was seized by the same sickness, to which his worn 
out frame fell an easy prey. He took to his bed 
the day of his son's death, the 3rd of August. 



1270] Second Crtisade and Death 291 

In a few days fever and ague supervened, and he 
began to prepare for the end. CaUing his eldest 
son, PhiHp, himself sick of an ague, he delivered to 
him the instructions which he had drawn up for his 
guidance, written in French by his own hand. He 
made some additions to his will and disposed of 
several other outstanding matters. He was espe- 
cially anxious about the preaching and propagation 
of the Faith among the Tunisians, and drew up direc- 
tions for that purpose. He also gave audience to 
the ambassadors of the Greek Emperor, who had 
followed him to Africa to treat of the reunion of the 
Churches. 

On Sunday the 24th of August, Saint Bartholo- 
mew's day, he received the sacrament from his con- 
fessor, and afterwards gave himself up to prayer and 
to begging the intercession of the Saints, particular- 
ly of Saint Denis, his patron. "We heard him," 
says one who was present, " often repeating to him- 
self in a low voice the end of the collect of Saint 
Denis : ' Grant us Lord, we beseech Thee, for Thy 
love to despise the good fortune of this world and 
not to fear its adversity ' : and also the beginning of 
the collect of Saint James : ' Lord, be the Sanctifier 
and Guardian of Thy people.' " In the night he was 
heard singing the French hymn, ' Nous irons en Je- 
rusalem' Next morning he fell asleep for A.D. 
a little while, and waking before midday 1270, 
uttered a verse of the Psalmist : " I will enter Aug- 
into Thy house ; I will adore in Thy holy ust 
temple and will confess Thy name." These 25tn 
were his last words. He died about three o'clock in 



292 Saint Louis [1270 

the afternoon on a bed covered with ashes, to which 
he had asked to be removed, lying peacefully, with 
his arms crossed, and smiling. 

At the moment he expired the fleet of the King 
of Sicily was entering the bay. But no one desired 
to pursue the expedition, even though three success- 
ful engagements were fought against the Saracens, 
and the arrival of Edward of England and other re- 
inforcements increased the strength of the crusaders. 
A peace was patched up with Tunis after two 
months, and the army sailing to Sicily dispersed. A 
part travelled with Philip through Italy to France, 
carrying the bones of the King. On the way crowds 
of people flocked to see and touch the coffer in 
which they were borne. The heart and other por- 
tions of his body had been embalmed and buried in 
the church of Monreale, near to Palermo in Sicily. 
The bones were solemnly interred at Saint Denis in 
May of the following year. Before long miracles 
were reported to be worked at the tomb of Louis. 
An examination was ordered, on the result of which 
and on an investigation of his whole life, conducted 
through the testimony of many who had 

lived with and known him, he was placed in 
1207 

the calendar of Saints by Pope Boniface 

VIII., twenty-seven years after his death. 

The personal character of Saint Louis speaks for 
itself. Praise would be tedious, and there is no need 
of apology. No sound of censure or detraction 
breaks the universal voice of reverence and admira- 
tion which has gone up from his own and from suc- 
ceeding ages. He was one of those rare and happy 



1270] Second Crtisade and Death 293 

natures formed for saintship, from which the dross 
and flaws of human composition seem to have been 
left out, which find virtue facile, and attain holiness, 
not like some vehement forceful spirits through the 
fierce storm and stress of battling temptations, but 
by easy paths under sunny skies. His innate piety, 
improved by nurture and training, illuminated every 
relation of his life, and shone with as pure and 
steady a flame amid the glare which beats upon a 
throne as it might have in the still and obscure 
twilight of the cloister. 

But since it was his lot to be born in a royal rather 
than in a private station, we cannot neglect to regard 
him in another aspect and consider his qualities not 
only as a man but as a king. A few monarchs have 
been saints, and many have been wise or fortunate 
rulers : Louis almost alone united the two charac- 
ters. He possessed not only the passive but the 
active virtues and those which are best calculated to 
secure the welfare of society — justice, prudence, 
benevolence, industry. It was his good fortune to 
be placed in a position where those qualities were 
sufficient, in a time which had thrown off most of its 
disorders and not yet contracted others, and which 
required a soothing regimen of good government 
more than inspired treatment or heroic remedies. 
His reign was a period of formation and settle- 
ment rather than of growth. He was not a great 
conqueror or reformer or legislator. He had neither 
a brilliant genius nor an originating mind nor a high 
capacity for war. Yet by force of his personal vir- 
tues he raised the reputation and power of his 



294 Saint Louis [1270 

realm and crown higher than any of his ancestors ; 
and infused into both a lasting strength and vigour 
and self-confidence more valuable than any material 
gain. 

Other Kings of France have made greater addi- 
tions to their territories. Louis himself, had he 
wished, might perhaps have anticipated the con- 
quests of many centuries, might have driven the 
English from the south and extended his borders to 
the Rhine and the Alps. This was not done ; but 
previous acquisitions were completed and consoli- 
dated, and, what was more important, a national 
feeling began to spring up. The outlying provinces, 
shadowed by the King's renown, began to feel, 
though faintly, that they were members of the same 
body, governed by a common head. The external 
prestige of the French Crown gained no less, as 
foreign nations saw in the power and goodness of 
its holder the supreme representation of earthly 
majesty. 

It was within France, however, that the reign of 
Louis had its greatest influence and effect. The 
part which he took in developing the system of 
monarchic government has been touched on in a 
former chapter. The improvement in the machinery 
of administration, the advance in the study and ar- 
rangement of the laws, the assertion of the liberties 
of the Galilean Church, which marked this time, 
were not so much his conscious and deliberate work 
as the natural outcome of forces and tendencies al- 
ready existing and active. But he directed and 
modified in some sort the movement of the current, 



1270] Second Crusade and Death 295 

though without a clear vision of its meaning and 
ultimate end. Moreover by the beneficence of his 
government, the strictness of his justness, the fair- 
ness and moderation of his dealings, he moralised the 
principles at work and lent to their later development 
an authority and sanction by which his successors 
gladly profited. The shield of his honoured name 
was thrown over them ; a legal code appeared under 
the title of the Establishments of Saint Louis, and in a 
Pragmatic Sanction of Saint Louis the native Church 
pretended to see the foundation of its privileges. 

This then was his chief and permanent gift to 
France, that he moralised the monarchy, and gave it 
that spiritual life without which any institution is 
only a barren mechanical collection of names and 
forms, incapable of growth or reparation, which will 
crumble and fall at the first violent shock. He em- 
bodied and energised almost at the beginning those 
elements in the kingly system on which its essential 
life depended ; the elements, that is, of order and 
justice. By the excellence of the monarch the sys- 
tem received its most perfect manifestation. Louis, 
just and a lover of peace above all men, exercised 
those virtues to the full in his public conduct, and 
left at once a model to his successors and a convinc- 
ing example to the remembrance of his subjects of 
the benefits conferred by the sway of a righteous 
King. Under him the bright side of the monarchic 
rule was brought out in glowing colours, imprinting 
an indelible picture on the minds of the people, 
while its darker aspect was kept back, its oppression 
and corruption and arbitrariness. The merits of his 



296 Saint Louis [1270 

government, contrasted with the disorder and ill 
state of other nations, were enough to justify the 
language of the chronicler, that " the kingdom of 
France in his time was like the sun in heaven in 
comparison with the rest." 

The crusades of Louis, however much they added 
to his reputation for holiness, have been generally 
condemned on grounds of prudence and policy. 
There was no longer any danger to Europe from the 
Saracens, it is said, and the task of recovering and 
holding Palestine should have been recognised as 
desperate. In the vain endeavour he deserted his 
kingdom and spent the blood and treasure of his 
people. But, if the motive may be regarded, he was 
induced by piety not ambition, as his contemporaries 
all allowed, admiring a zeal which in themselves was 
mostly smothered by worldly wisdom. If a single 
and disinterested aim, apart from the prospect of 
selfish advantage, can justify any war, his crusades 
were justified. And even on considerations of pol- 
icy alone, it is not for an age which is beginning to 
chafe at Mohammedan dominion in western Asia 
to judge too harshly the last attempt which was 
made to overthrow it. 

The people of France long lamented the loss of 
the King who had governed them so well ; and the 
ballads of both North and South attest the love and 
sorrow of the whole nation. But perhaps the best 
epitaph of Louis is found in the brief notice of an 
annalist writing a few years after his death : " There 
was peace in his time ; he loved God and Holy 
Church ; and they say that he is with the Saints." 



INDEX 



Abbeville, Gerard of, 281 
Acre, 92, 93, 222 
Aigues-Mortes, 156 
Aimery, see Rochechouart 
Albi, province of, 41 
Albigensian heresy, 11 
Alix, see Cyprus 

Alphonso, see Poitiers and Cas- 
tile 
Amaury, see Montfort 
Angouleme, Count of, 147 
Anjou, 4, 6 

— Charles of, 20, 140, 162, 176, 
196, 219, 232, 240, 251 

Aquinas, Thomas, 274, 281 
Aquitaine, dukes of, 4 
Aragon, 14 

— Isabel of, 239 

— King of, 108, 122, 238 
Archambaud, see Bourbon 
Architecture, 269 

Aries, Archbishop of, 89 
Artois, Robert of, 86, 102, 105, 

138, 172, 176, 177, 17S 
Assassins, 97 
Avesnes, John and Bouchard of, 

141, 219, 231, 234 
Avignon, siege of, 1226, 18 

B 

Bagdad, Caliph of, 159 
Baldwin, Emperor, 99, 135 



Bar, Count of, 25, 47, 91, 13S, 

142, 220 
Beatrix of Savoy, 65, 139 
Beaujeu, Humbert of, 106, 177 
Beaulieu, Godfrey of, 266 
Beaumont, William, 198 
Beauvais, Bishop of, 58, 75, 138 
Belesme, siege of, 37 
Berenger, Raymond, 139 
Besan5on, Archbishop of, 89 
Beziers, Viscount of, 13, 151 
Bigod, Roger, 116 
Blanche, Queen, 8, 11, 21, 22, 55, 
78,106,132,138, 150, 154,197; 
suppresses rebellion, 1226, 27, 
37 ; her care of the young 
king, 32 ; quarrel with the 
University of Paris, 1229, 39 ; 
checks revolt, 1229, 44 ; as- 
sists Theobald, 1229,46 ; treats 
with Brittany, 1230, 49 ; atti- 
tude toward the Church, 1233, 
57 ; jealousy toward Queen 
Margaret, 65 ; subdues Peter, 
1234, 68 ; at time of Louis's 
majority, 1236, 82 ; her death, 
1252, 204, 206, 212-214 
Blaye-on-Garonne, 118 
Blois, county of, 5 
Boileau, Stephen, 259 
Bonaventure, Friar, 281 
Boniface, see Canterbury 
Bordeaux, Archbishop of, 89 
Bouchard, see Avesnes and 
Montmorency 



297 



29S 



Index 



Boulogne, Hvirepel of, 23 

— Philip of, 23, 27, 35, 44, 45. 

47, 69 

— Reginald of, 25 

Bourbon, Archambaud of, 62, 

74, 106, 162 
Bourges, Archbishop of, 138 
— • rendezvous at, 1226, iS 
Brabant, Duke of, 138 
Brie, 5 
Brittany, 4 

— John of, 138 

— Peter of, 22, 23, 27, 28, 74, gi, 
93, 117, 124, 138, 147, 172,180, 
193, 253 ; leads a revolt, 1227, 
36 ; revolts again, 1229, 44 ; 
deposed, 1230, 50 ; intrigues 
of, 1231, 61 ; revolts, 1234, 
66 ; submission of, 68 

Bulgarian heresy, 99 

Burgundy, 5 

— Hugh of, 45, 74, 91, 92, 138, 
147, 165 

— Yolande of, 239 



Canterbury, Archbishop of, 139 
Capet, House of, i, 56 
Castelnau, Peter of, 13 
Castile, Alphonso of, 240 

— Ferdinand of, 204, 238 
Cathedrals, 269 
Celestin IV., Pope, 128 
Chalons, Duke of, 242 
Champagne, counts of, 5 

— Theobald of, 18, 22, 25, 27, 35, 

41, 45, 49, 61, 242 
de la Chapelle, Geoffrey, 62 
Charlemagne, i, 3 
Charles, see Anjou 
Chartres, county of, 5 

— William of, 266 
Chastillon, Walter, 171 
Chateau-Roux, Odo of, see 

Odo 
Chester, Earl of, 52 
Chinon, 27, 28 
Church and State, 56 
Cisteaux, Abbot of, 89 



Clement IV., Pope, 284 
Clovis, King, 109 
Cluny, Abbot of, 89, 226 
Coinage, reform of the, 263 
Colmein, Peter of, 43 
Compiegne, treaty of, 1230, 52 
Conrad, King of the Romans, 

127, 153, 154 
Conradin, 240 
Cornwall, Richard of, 38, 93, 

107, 115, 152, 236, 240 
Coucy, Enguerrand of, 25, 36, 

45, 106, 252 

— Raoul of, 138, 179 
Crown of thorns, loi 
Crusade, the Shepherds', 204, 

205 
Crusades, 8, 91, 284 
Cyprus, Alix, Queen of, 23, 46, 

61, 69 

— King of, 161 

D 

Damascus, Sultan of, 16S 
Damietta, 165, 167, 170, 193 
Dampierre, William of, 141, 219, 

232 
Dauphiny, 5 
Dominic, Saint, 13 
Dreux, princes of, 23, 45, 138, 

162 

— Robert of, 69 
Duelling, custom of, 249 
Dunbar, Patrick of, 162 



E 



Edward of England, 287, 292 
Egypt, Sultan of, 93, 132 
Eleanor of Provence, 84 
Enguerrand, see Coucy 
Epernay burned, 1230, 49 
Excommunication, abuse of, 261 



Fakareddin, 178 
Ferdinand, see Castile 



hidex 



299 



Ferrand, see Flanders 
Fescamp, Abbot of, 89 
Fismes burned, 1230, 49 
Flanders, Countess of, 25, 82 

— description of, 4 

— Ferrand of, 10, 25, 26, 46, 82, 
180 

— Joan of, 141 

— Margaret of, 141 
Foix, Count of, 42, 43 
Fontaines, Peter des, 250 
Fontenay I'Abattu, siege of, 

1242, 112 

Frederick II., Emperor of Ger- 
many, quarrels with the Pope, 
1239, 84 ; heresy of, 87 ; re- 
ceives letter from Henry III., 
1242, 122 ; relations with 
France, 1243, 128; cursed and 
deposed by the Pope, 1245, 
136, 137 ; inclined to make 
concessions, 1246, 142 ; sends 
envoys to procure Louis's re- 
lease from captivity, 1250, 
202 ; death of, 203, 240 

Fulcodi, Cardinal, 239 

G 

Gascony, 14 ; spirit of its peo- 
ple, 4 

— Richard of, 27 

Gaza, battle of, 1244, 133 
Geoffrey, de la Chapelle, 62 

— of Lusignan, ill 

— of Rancon, 119 

— de Villete, 250 
Gerard of Abbeville, 281 
Godfrey, see Beauvais and Beau- 
lieu 

Gregory IX., Pope, 31 ; as a 
peacemaker, 1229, 47 ; writes 
to Louis, 1234, 72 ! provoked 
by demands of the French 
barons, 1235, 74 ! continues 
the struggle with Emperor 
Frederick, 1239, 85; death of, 
1241, 127 

Guerin, Bishop, 21, 23 



II 



Haco of Norway, 152 
Haie-Pamel, revolt of, 37 
" Hammer of Heretics," 99 
Henry 1 1 . of England, success of, 7 

— III. of England, enters into 
agreement with Peter of Brit- 
tany, 1226, 27 ; assists re- 
bellion in France, 1227, 36 ; 
receives further overtures 
from rebels, 1227, 38 ; fails to 
support his French allies, 
1229, 44 ; invades France in 
person, 1230, 49 ; marriage of, 
1235, ^3 ! conspires again 
against France, 1 24 1, 107; in- 
vades France again, 1242, 107- 
iio; retreats in haste, 1242, 
117 ; writes to Emperor Fred- 
erick, 1242, 122 ; returns to 
England, 1243, 124 ; un- 
friendly attitude during 
Louis's captivity, 1250, 203 ; 
goes into Gascony, 1253, 219 ; 
visits Paris, 1254, 232; second 
visit to Paris, I259, 237 ; dis- 
pute with the English barons, 

243-245 

— of Thuringia, 142, 153 
Heresy, Albigensian, 11 

— Bulgarian, 99 

Holland, William of, elected 
King of the Romans, 1247, 
154 ; takes part in the quarrel 
between Dampierre and 
Avesnes, 1251, 219, 220; death 
of, 1256, 231 
Honorius III., 15, 16 
Hospitallers, the, 162, 2or 
Hubert de Burgh, 38, 45, 51 
Hugh, founder of the House of 
Capet, I 

— of Burgundy, see Burgundy 

— of la Marche, see la Marche 

— of Lusignan, 24 

— the Preaching Friar, 227 
Humbert, of Beaujeu, 106, 177 

— the Constable, 180 
Hurepel, see Boulogne 



iOO 



Index 



Innocent III., Pope, g 

— IV., Pope, election of, 1243, 
128 ; seeks refuge from Fred- 
erick, 1244, I2Q, 130 ; calls 
a council at Lyons, 1245, 
135-137 ; meets Louis at 
Cluny, 1245, 138 ; extortion- 
ate acts of, 145 ; league of the 
French barons against, 1246, 
147, 148 ; visited by Louis, 
1248, 156 ; his dispute with 
Frederick, 1250, 203 

Inquisition, the, 44, 72, 73 
Isabel, sister of Louis IX., 19, 
28 

— of Aragon, 239 

— Countess, of La Marche, 126 

— of England marries Frederick 
II. of Germany, 1235, 84 

Ismael, Saleh, 159 



Jacobin friars, character of, 72 
Jaffa, Count of, 197 
Jews, 53, 99, 100, 278 
Joan, of Flanders, 141 

— of Toulouse, 41, 105 
John, of Avesnes, see Avesnes 

— of Brittany, see Brittany 

— Duke, 78 

— of England, 8 

— King of Jerusalem, 25 

— brother of Louis, 28 

— son of Louis, 239 

— of Valenciennes, 199 
Joigny, Count of, 252 
Joinville, 45, 105, 179, 197, 198, 

209, 217, 221-224, 231, 250, 
259, 266, 285 

K 

Khorasmians, the, 132 

L 

La Marche, Hugh of, 8, 17, 27- 
29> 51, 74, 77, 107, 115, 119, 



138 ; accused of treason, 
1243, 126 ; death of, 1249, 
169 

Languedoc, location of, 5, 13, 
14 ; war in, 31, 33 ; resettle- 
ment of the Church in, 43 

Laon, Bishop of, 138 

Lateran, 14 

Leicester, Simon Montfort of, 
114, 122 

Liege, Bishop of, 83 

Limbourg, Duke of, 83 

London, treaty of, 113 

Longsword, William, 116, 122, 
171, 172, 178, 179 

Lorraine, Duke of, 95 

Lorris, treaty of, 1243, 123 

Louis, the Idler, i 

— VI., warlike rule of, 3 

— VII. keeps England at bay, 
7 

— VIII. offered the English 
crown, 12 15, 10 ; succeeds 
to throne, 1223, 16 ; cam- 
paign against Languedoc, 17 ; 
captures Rochelle, 1224, 17 ; 
death, 1226, 19 ; his last in- 
junctions, 24 

— IX., birth of, 1214, 19; 
coronation of, 1226, 24 ; at- 
tempt to kidnap, 1227, 3*^ I 
his education, 32, 33 ; as Duke 
of Guyenne, 1230, 48 ; re- 
pulses English, 1230, 50 ; at 
Melun, 1230, 53 ; early man- 
hood of, 1232-, 62 ; charac- 
ter of, 63 ; marriage of, 
1234, ^5 ) attitude toward 
the clergy, 1 235, 76 ; attains 
majority, 1236, 81 ; threatens 
Emperor Frederick, 1242, 90 ; 
assists crusaders, 1239, 91 ; and 
the Tartars, 1241, 96 ; and the 
assassins, 97; piety and zeal of, 
98 ; attitude toward the Jews, 
loi ; knights his brother, 
1241, 106 ; marches against 
English, 1242, III ; receives 
submission of Hugh, 1242, 
119 ; thoroughly established 



i 



Index 



301 



Louis IX. — Continued 

on throne, 1243, 124 ; sick- 
ness of, 1244, 131 ; meets 
Pope at Cluny, 1245, 138 ; 
as arbitrator, 1246, 141 ; again 
meets Pope, 1246, 141 ; pre- 
pares for crusade, 1246, 144 ; 
remonstrates against Papal 
exactions, 1245, I45 ; calls a 
Parliament, 1247, 150 ; writes 
to Emperor Frederick, 1247, 
152 ; starts on crusade, 1248, 
155 ; arrives at Cyprus, 1248, 
161 ; sends embassy to the 
Tartars, 1248, 164 ; lands in 
Egypt, 1249, 165 ; attacks 
the Mamelukes, 1250, 179 ; 
captured, 1250, 185 ; reaches 
Acre, 1250, 196 ; conduct in 
Palestine, 208, 20g ; learns of 
his mother's death, 1253, 214; 
embarks for France, 1254, 
'222 ; arrives in Paris, 1254, 
227 ; foreign policy, 1254- 
1270, 230 ; compromise with 
England, 235 ; as an arbitra- 
tor, 242 ; in internal affairs, 
1254-1270, 246 ; justice of, 
254 ; instructions to his son, 
263 ; contemporary biogra- 
phies of, 266 ; charity of, 267; 
domestic life of, 281 ; prepares 
for his second crusade, 1270, 
285 ; death of, 1270, 291 

Lusignan, Geoffrey of, ill 

— Hugh of, 24 

Lyons, Count of, gi 



M 



Macon, Count of, 91 
Maine, province of, 4 
Mamelukes, 187, 189, 199 
Manfred of Naples, 240 
Margaret, daughter of Archam- 
baud, 62 

— of Flanders, see Flanders 

— Queen, 192, 215, 223, 224 ; 



character of, 64 ; marriage of, 

65 
Marshal, Earl, 52 
Matthew, of St. Denis, 287 

— of Trie, 255 
Maurice, Archbishop, 57 
Meaux, treaty_ef, 1229, 41, 105 
Michael Palseologus, 243 
Milo, Bishop, 58 
Montauban, 120 

Montfort, Simon, 14, 114, 122, 
2ig, 245 

— Philip of, 185 

— Amaury of, 15-17, gr 
Montl'hery, 30 

Montmorency, Bouchard of, 74 
Montpellier, councils of, 14 
Morea, Prince of, 165 
Muret, battle of, 1213, 14 

N 

Naples, Manfred of, 240 
Narbonne, Archbishop of, 41 
Naser, 201 
Navarre, Sancho of, 6g 

— Theobald of, 77, 78, 80, gi- 
g3, 100, 23g 

Nesle, Simon of, 252, 287 
Nismes, Bishop of, 89 
Nodgemeddin Ayoub, Saleh, 

159 
Norman, House merged with 
Anjou, 6 

— invasion of England, 5 
Normandy, conquered by Philip, 

9 

— description of, 4 

— Duke of, 6 
Norway, Haco of, 152 



O 



Odo, Papal Legate, 137, 141, 

145, 156, 221 
Old Man of the Mountain, 96, 

200 
Orleans, Bishop of, 13S 
Otho, Cardinal, 10, 42 
Oxford, Parliament of, 243 



302 



Index 



Palaeologus, Michael, 243 
Patrick, see Dunbar ■ 
Peter, see Brittany, Castelnau, 
Colmien 

— des Fontaines, 250 

Philip, Augustus, 7, 8 ; death of, 
1222, 16 ; effect of his policy, 
21 

— Bishop of Valence, 139 

— of Montfort, see Montfort 
— • second son of Louis IX., 239 
Poitiers, Alphonso of, 20, 28, 

105, 108, 175, 180, 193, 196, 

214, 219 
Pons, Reginald of, 51, no, 119, 

122 
Ponthieu, Simon of, 74, 83 
Prester John, 163 
Profanity, suppression of, 277 
Provence, location of, 5 

— Count of, 88 

— Eleanor of, 84 
Provostship of Paris, 259 



R 



Rancon, Geoffrey of, 119 
Raoul, see Coucy 
Raymond Berenger, see Beren- 
ger 

— of Toulouse, see Toulouse 
Reginald, of Boulogne, see Bou- 
logne 

— of Pons, see Pons 
Rheims, Archbishop of, 76, 138 
Richard, see Cornwall and Gas- 
cony 

Robert, brother of Louis IX., 
20, 99 

— of Artois, see Artois 

— of Dreux, see Dreux 

— of Sorbonne, 274, 280 
Rochechouart, Aimery of, 51 
Roche de Glui, 157 
Roger, Bigod, see Bigod 

— of Roche de Glui, 157 
Romano, Cardinal-Legate, 22, 

31, 32, 34. 40, 41. 44 



Romans, traditions of the, 5 
Rouen, Archbishop of, 32, Sg 
Royaumont, Abbey of, 33 



St. Amour, William of, 281 

— Denis, Council of, 1235, 74 

— Matthew of, 287 

— Paul, Count of, 74, 138, 147, 
220 

Saintes, battle of, 1242, 116 

— Bishop of, 117 
Saladin, empire of, 159 
Saleh Ismael, 159 
Salisbury, William of, 152 
Sancerre, county of, 5 
Sancho of Navarre, 69 
Savoy, Beatrix of, 65, 139 
Senlis, Bishop of, 23, 142 
Sens, Archbishop of, 102, 138 
Sezanne burned, 1230, 49 
Shepherds' Crusade, 204, 205 
Simon, see Montfort, Nesle, 

Ponthieu 
Sinnebald, 128 
Soissons, Count of, iSo, 193 
Sorbonne, Robert of, 274, 280 
Stephen, see Boileau 
Suessa, Thaddeus of, 136 



Tartar Embassy, 1248, 162 
Tartars, invasion of the, 1238, 

94 
Templars, the, 162, 164, 177, 

193, 201, 210 
Theobald, see Navarre and 

Champagne 
Thomas Aquinas, 274, 281 
Thuringia, Henry of, 142, 153 
Toulouse, castle of, 42 

— counts of, 5 

— Joan of, 41, 105 

— Raymond of, first crusade 
against, 1213, 13, 14 ; excom- 
municated, 1225, 17 ; crusade 
against, continued, 19, 31 ; 
makes a truce, 1228, 34 ; sur- 



Index 



303 



Toulouse — Continued 

renders, 1229, 41 ; peace 
terms granted to, 1229, 41 ; 
reconciled to the Church, 42 ; 
and the Inquisition, 72; attacks 
Provence, 1239, 88 ; attacked 
by La Marche, 1242, 120, 
121 
— settlement of, 55 
Tours, Archbishop of, 75 
Trebizond, Prince of, 218 
Truce of 1227, the, 29 



U 



University of Paris, 39, 82, 280 
Urban IV., Pope, 240 



V 



Valence, Philip of, 139 



Valenciennes, John of, igg 
Vaucouleurs, conference of, 

1237, 85 
Vendome, treaties of, 28, 30, 50 
Vertus burned, 1230, 49 
de Villete, Geoffrey, 250 

W 

William, of Holland, see Holland 

— Longsword of Salisbury, see 
Longsword 

— of St. Amour, 281 
Winchester, Bishop of, 94 
Worcester, Bishop of, 152 



Yolande of Brittany, 27, 28 
— of Burgundy, see Burgundy 
York, Archbishop of, 29 




Heroes of the Nations. 



EDITED BY 



EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., 
Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 



A Series of biographical studies of the lives and work 
of a number of representative historical characters about 
whom have gathered the great traditions of the Nations 
to which they belonged, and who have been accepted, in 
many instances, as types of the several National ideals. 
With the life of each typical character will be presented 
a picture of the National conditions surrounding him 
during his career. 

The narratives are the work of writers who are recog- 
nized authorities on their several subjects, and, while 
thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present picturesque 
and dramatic " stories " of the Men and of the events con- 
nected with them. 

To the Life of each " Hero " will be given one duo- 
decimo volume, handsomely printed in large type, pro- 
vided with maps and adequately illustrated according to 
the special requirements of the several subjects. The 
volumes will be sold separately as follows : 



Large 12°, cloth extra . 

Half morocco, uncut edges, gilt top 



$1 50 

I 75 



HEROES OF THE NATIONS. 



A series of biographical studies of the lives and work of 
certain representative historical characters, about whom have 
gathered the great traditions of the Nations to which they 
belonged, and who have been accepted, in many instances, as 
types of the several National ideals. 

The volumes will be sold separately as follows : cloth extra, 
$1.50 ; half leather, uncut edges, gilt top, $1075. 

The following are now ready : 



NELSON. By W. Clark Russell. 
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. By C. 

R. L. Fletcher. 
PERICLES. By Evelyn Abbott. 
THEODORIC THE GOTH. By 

Thomas Hodgkin, 
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. By. H. R. 

Fox-Bourne. 
JULIUS C^SAR. By W. Warde 

Fowler. 
WYCLIF. By Lewis Sergeant. 
NAPOLEON. By W. O'Connor Mor- 

ris. 
HENRY OF NAVARRE. By P. F. 

■Willert. 
CICERO. By J. L. Strachan-David- 

son. 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Noah 

Brooks. 
PRINCE HENRY (OF PORTUGAL) 

THE NAVIGATOR. By C. R. 

Beazley, 
JULIAN THE PHILOSOPHER. 

By Alice Gardner. 
LOUIS XIV. By Arthur Hassall, 
CHARLES XII. By R. Nisbet Bain. 
LORENZO DE' MEDICI, Ey Ed- 

ward Armstrong. 



JEANNE D'ARC. By Mrs. Oliphant. 

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. By 
■Washington Irving. 

ROBERT THE BRUCE. By Sir 
Herbert Maxwell. 

HANNIBAL. By W. O'Connor Mor- 
ris. 

ULYSSES S. GRANT. By William 
Conant Church. 

ROBERT E. LEE. By Henry Alex- 
ander White. 

THE CID CAMPEADOR. By H. 
Butler Clarke. 

SALADIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole. 

BISMARCK. By J. W. Headlam. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT. By 
Benjamin I. 'Wheeler. 

CHARLEMAGNE. By H. W. C. 
Davis. 

OLIVER CROMWELL. By Charles 
Firth. 

RICHELIEU. By James B. Perkins. 

DANIEL O'CONNELL. By Robert 
Dunlop. 

SAINT LOUIS (Louis IX., of France). 
By Frederick Perry. 

LORD CHATHAM. Ey Walford 
Davis Green. 



Other volumes in preparation are : 



OWEN GLYNDWR. By Arthur G. 
Bradley. 

HENRY V. By Charles L. Kings- 
ford. 

EDW^ARD !. By Edward Jenks. 

MOLTKE. By Spencer Wilkin- 
son. 

JUDAS MACCAB.EUS. By Israel 
Abrahams. 

SOBIESKT. By F. A, Pollard. 



ALFRED THE TRUTHTELLER. 

By Frederick Perry. 
FREDERICK II. By A. L. Smith. 
MARLBOROUGH. By C. Vv'. C. 

Omar. 
RICHARD THE LION-HEARTL . 

By T. A. Archer. 
WILLIAM THE SILENT. By Ruth 

Putnam. 
JUSTINIAN. By Edward Jenks. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, New York and London. 



The Story of the Nations. 



Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
announcing that they have in course of publication, in 
co-operation with Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, of London, a 
series of historical studies, intended to present in a graphic 
manner the stories of the different nations that have 
attained prominence in history. 

In the story form the current of each national life is 
distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy 
periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their 
philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal 
history. 

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to 
enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them 
before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and 
struggled — as they studied and wrote, and as they amused 
themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with 
which the history of all lands begins, will not be over- 
looked, though these will be carefully distinguished from 
the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted 
historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions. 

The subjects of the different volumes have been planned 
to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive 
epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will 
present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in 
the great Story OF THE Nations ; but it is, of course, 
not always practicable to issue the several volumes in 
their chronological order. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS. 



The "Stories" are printed in good readable type, and in 
handsome i2nio form. They are adequately illustrated and 
furnished with maps and indexes. Price per vol., cJoth, $1.50 ; 
half morocco, gilt top, $1.75. 

The following are now ready : 

GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison. 



ROME. Arthur Gilman. 
^HEJE^A/^S. Prof. James K. Hosmer. 
CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 
NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen. 
SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 
HUNGARY. Prof. A.Vdmb^ry. 
CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church. 
THE SARACENS. Arthur Gilman. 
THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
THE NORMANS. Sarah Ornejewett. 
PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 
ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. Raw- 

linson. 
ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. 

P. Mahaffy. 
ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
THE GOTHS. Henry Br&Jley. 
IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 
TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. 

Z. A. Ragozin. 
MEDIEVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gus- 

tave Masson. 
HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold Rogers. 
MEXICO. Susan Hale. 
PHCENICIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 
THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen Zim- 

mern. 
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred J. 

Church. 
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. Stan- 
ley Lane-Pool. 
RUSSIA. W. R. Morfi!!. 
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W.D. 

Morrison. 
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh, 
SW^ITZERLAND. R. Stead and Mrs. 

A. Hug. 
PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens. 
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. W^. 

C. Oman. 
SICILY. E. A. Freeman. 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. Bella 

Duffy. 
POLAND. W. R. Morfill. 
f>ARTHlA. Geo. Rawlinson. 



JAPAN. David Murray. 

THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF 

SPAIN. H. E. Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tregar- 

then. 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. Mo 

Theal. 
VENICE, AletheaWiel. 
THE CRUSADES. T. S. Archer and 

C. L. Kingsford. 
VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA. C. E. Maurice. 
CANADA. J. G. Bourinot. 
THE BALKAN STATES. William 

Miller. 
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. R. W. 

Frazer. 
MODERN FRANCE. Andre LeBon. 
THE BUILDING OF THE BRITISH 

EMPIRE. Alfred T. Story. Two 

vols. 
THE FRANKS. Lewis Sergeant. 
THE WEST INDIES. Amos K. 

Fiske. 
THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND IN 

THE 19TH CENTURY. Justin 

McCarthy, M.P. Two vols. 
AUSTRIA, THE HOME OF THK 

HAPSBURG DYNASTY, FROM 

1282 TO THE PRESENT DAY. 

Sidney 'Whitman. 
CHINA. Robt. K. Douglass. 
MODERN SPAIN. Major Martin A, 

S. Hume. 
MODERN ITALY. Pietro Orsi. 
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. 

Helen A, Smith, Two vols. 
Other volumes in preparation are : 
THE UNITED STATES, 1775 1897, 

Prof. A, C. McLaughlin. Two 

vols, 
BUDDHIST INDIA. Prof. T. W. 

Rhys-Davids. 
MOHAMMEDAN INDIA. Stanlej 

Lane-Poole. 
WALES AND CORNWALL. Owen 

M. Edwards. 



zl 



82? 



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